LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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THE OLIVE BRANCH 

7 

J. HENDRICKSON M'CARTY, M.D., D.D. 



AUTHOR OF 



Fact and Fiction in Holy Writ, Two Thousand Miles Through the 

Heart of Mexico, Inside the Gates, The Black 

Horse and Carryall, etc. 



CONTAINING THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THE USE OF 

ANESTHESIA IN LABOR 

By DAVID MILLER BARR, M.D. 

Founder and Physician-in-Chief of the Hygienic Institute at Ocean 

Grove, Neiv Jersey ; Mernber of the Pennsylvania State 

Medical Society and the Philadelphia Obstetrical 

Society ; Surgeon to Post 77, G. A. R., 

Philadelphia, etc. 



^C'7 



"DISCIPULUSETPRIORIS POSTERIOR DIES/' 



OCEAN GROVE, N. J. 
1892. 



bins 



Copyright, 1892, by 

J. HENDRICKSON M'CARTY, 

Ocean Grove, N. J. 



TO 

THE WOMEN OF AMERICA, 
DAUGHTERS, SISTERS, WIVES, MOTHERS, 

THIS BOOK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY 

DEDICATED, 

WITH THE HOPE THAT THE CONSCIENTIOUS PERUSAL 

OF ITS PAGES WILL SERVE A GOOD PURPOSE 

IN THEIR LIVES AS WOMEN. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 

Books good and evil — Important topic — Written to do good 
— Seeking and finding — The discovery — Nature full of 
wonders— Horrors of ancient surgery — The new age — 
Pain abolished — Ignorance not the mother of purity — 
Three important chapters — The two Gospels — "Prove 
all things " — Thank God for anaesthesia — No need for 
spasms of anguish 3 

CHAPTER II. 

THE WOMAN. 

Theme of poets and philosophers — Restatement of old things 
— Topics of practical value better than " glittering gen- 
eralities " — Man and woman variations of the same type — 
Each fills a place — Unity in diversity — " Mothering" the 
world — Openings for business — Maternal instincts — Their 
dignity — Woman in the front rank — Her love and stabil- 
ity of character — Solomon's pen-portrait of the perfect 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DAUGHTER. 

The flower ornaments the garden — The daughter's place in 
the home — Her devotion — " Know thyself" — She thirsts 
for knowledge — Knowledge, evil and good — Mother's 
opportunity — The confidante — Serious talk — Guessing — • 



vi CONTENTS. 

Evil associations — Strange weird land — False modesty — 
What a girl's heart is made of — Guiding-star — Avoid ex- 
tremes — Little confidences — Mother and boy — Father and 
son — Chaste words — Freedom and restraint 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE WIFE. 

Wifehood means motherhood — The denial — Childless old 
people — Penalty of selfishness — The maiden's vision — 
Cloud and sunshine — Perfect union — A strange light — 
Bewitching glamour — Marriage-bells — Bliss or woe — 
Sacred relation — New life — Risks — Sorrow — Cheating 
nature — The account — Dread ordeal — Woman's heroism 
— Wrecks on life's sea — New and better way — The dawn- 
ing light 37 

CHAPTER V. 

THE MOTHER. 

The holy mission — Noble spirits — Honors to motherhood in 
ancient times — Nature's types — Struggles — Sad memories 
— Young wife's dream — Crushed hopes — The curse of 
Eden — Provision for its amelioration — The age of science 
— God is not woman's enemy — Belated people — No need 
of great suffering 53 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE BABE. 

Reading this book " on the sly " — No harm done — Intelligent 
instruction much needed — Takes the place of the vicious 
sort — Expectations — A noble ambition — Slow growth 
— Helplessness — Inheritances — Physical structure — Dis- 
ease — Beauty — Disposition — Mother's duty — Sublime 
pinnacle — "Marks" — " A little child shall lead them" 
— " Encumbrances " — My little boy — They teach and help 
us — What is a baby worth ?..... 69 



CONTENTS. vii 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE RELIEF — AN/ESTHESIS. 

Safer in labor than in surgery — Reasons given — Not propor- 
tionately used — Severity of induced pain — It is brief — 
Labor-pains, their nature — Continuance from two to fifty 
hours — Described in the Bible as " anguish" — True pict- 
ure — Falls on delicate women — A safeguard against 
convulsions — Chloroform may be used — Not so safe — No 
harm from anaesthesis to the child — A perfect boon to 
woman — Intelligence, not prejudice, should rule here. 87 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE KIND USED — THE INHALER. 

Formula given — Does not produce anaemia of the brain — Nor 
arrest the action of the heart — Ether less powerful than 
chloroform — Dilutes it — Alcohol vapor a counter-stimu- 
lant — The combination meets safely every condition — 
Description of the inhaler 107 

CHAPTER IX. 

HAPPY RESULTS IN PRACTICE. 

Dr. D. M. Barr's long practice in Philadelphia — Woman's 
consciousness not lost — Knows all, but without pain — 
Does not retard nature — Favors it by relaxation — Results 
which may be looked for — While the mother is being led 
through Elysian fields a new life is ushered into being — 
A sense of refreshment — Many cases given to illustrate 
— Note particularly that of Mrs. X 119 

CHAPTER X. 

AN OPEN LETTER, WITH SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Difference between use and abuse — All things belong to man- 
kind — Weighed in the balance — Blood-letting, changes of 
opinion — Discarded theories — Editorial note — Lovers of 



viii CONTENTS. 

truth — Life or death — Poor logic — Comfort which God 
means woman to have, denied her — Scripture promises 
more than mere words — The merciful Lord — Her only real 
comfort anaesthesia — Simple and safe — Fifteen years of sad 
memory — Adam was put into a M deep sleep " when Eve 
was born — Charge of cowardice refuted — Doctors of 
medicine and doctors of divinity conservative — Appeal 
to the "common people" — Sad history of vaccination — 
Martyrs to science — A beautiful case of anaesthesis in 
spasms — A dear life saved 139 

CHAPTER XL 

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The grandeur of the medical profession — Nurses and nurs- 
ing — Humor the children — Live and learn — Does Nature 
make mistakes ? — A babe's griefs and ills — The chil- 
dren's hour 157 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE HOME. 

Recollections — Home a sacred word — Nomadic races have 
no such word — The love-life — Home and family — Bible 
account — The family the unit of society— Divine princi- 
ple — The lover — Government protection — What is home ? 
— The House-band and weaver — Head and heart — Stern 
business — True and false basis — Flowers of Rome — 
Shadows — Poverty's heart-cry — Hill-top of cheerfulness 
— Brick walls and smoke — Pictures — Flowers — Music 
— Sunlight 177 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



44 Truth is the most glorious thing ; the least filing of this 
gold is precious. Truth is ancient ; its gray hairs may make 
it venerable ; it comes from Him who is the Ancient of Days. 
There is not the least spot on truth's surface ; it breathes 
nothing but sanctity." — Watson. 

" Truth never studies appearances, error does ; truth is con- 
tent with the form of a mustard-seed, error seeks all the 
pageantry that art can invent and wealth procure." 

— Dr. Thomas. 



THE OLIVE BRANCH. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 

IN almost every age of the world the book 
has been invoked as a medium of commu- 
nication to the public. A good book may be 
a great blessing to the world if it be read ; in 
like manner a bad book may be a great curse. 

This book presents a number of topics, 
which indeed do cluster about a particular 
theme, that of woman considered in her 
varied relations. 

The importance of these several topics, in 
themselves, can scarcely be overestimated. 

It has not been written and published to 
gratify curiosity hunters, nor to feed a prurient 
taste ; and hence will not be advertised in a 
class of papers whose constituency lives on 
the lower plane of life. It was written, first 
of all, to do good. It seeks only pure eyes ; 



4 The Olive Branch. 

it appeals only to those who have the universal 
good at heart, of whom there are many. 

The great Father has hidden away in nature 
many things which mankind may have for the 
asking — that is, the seeking. " Seek, and ye 
shall find." The world does move, but some- 
times the motion seems too slow; we become 
impatient ; we forget that " one day is with 
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day M (2 Pet. iii, 8). Providence 
does guide the world. 

One of the greatest discoveries ever made 
by science was that of chloroform. Why did 
not the world know about it long ages ago ? 
O, if it only had ! What untold horrors and 
physical agonies might have been spared hu- 
manity ! The history of surgery would have 
read differently if some sort of safe anaesthetic 
had been known. 

One cannot read the account of the awful 
cuttings, burnings, and sawings of the times 
antedating this great discovery without a thrill 
of pain through very sympathy. But let the 
curtain drop ; it is better not to think of it or 
write about it. Let us forget the past and 
press forward to better things, 



Introductory Statement. 5 

Now we are living in a new age, when it is 
possible for amputations and other surgical 
operations to be painless, and for woman to 
pass through an ordeal which ninety-nine out 
of every one hundred dread beyond the power 
of words to express — the ordeal of childbirth 
— without agonies. 

It cannot be explained away — it is a great 
fact in the life of the world. This volume, 
while it discusses some other questions con- 
cerning the relations of woman, has been pre- 
pared for the purpose of throwing light upon 
a subject of great importance to motherhood, 
and so to the whole world. 

We have aimed at great plainness of speech, 
and have limited ourselves to purely practical 
topics. This is not a medical treatise, but a 
book for the people, especially women. It has 
been said that " a respectable, though dimin- 
ishing class in the community maintain that 
nothing which relates exclusively to either sex 
should become the subject of popular instruc- 
tion." Such an opinion is radically erroneous. 
Ignorance is no more the mother of purity 
than she is of devotion. 

We do not wish to appear vain or egotistic, 



6 The Olive Branch. 

but we believe that the reading of what we 
have here presented will be helpful to the 
woman who will pause long enough to ex- 
amine it. 

Especially do we commend Chapters VII, 
VIII, and IX, in which alone we have verged 
on the medical part, and then only so far as 
to set forth a great principle in practice. 

To abolish as much suffering as possible 
should be the aim of every one ; soothe as 
many hearts, and calm as many spirits as you 
can. For this we write ; and it is our desire 
to enlist as many people in the good work as 
may be possible. 

Next to preaching the Gospel of the Naz- 
arene we place the preaching of the gospel of 
" anesthesia in labor;'' and thousands who 
cannot do the one can do the other. 

We ask the careful perusal of this book, beg- 
ging that no one will hastily condemn it, but 
rather obey the injunction of the apostle of 
old : " Prove all things, hold fast that which 
is good." 

For ages the olive branch has been em- 
ployed to symbolize peace. We speak of 
children as " olive branches ;" and so we 



Introductory Statement. 7 

christen our book, The Olive Branch. We 
propose to " practice what we preach, " and 
hence shall not make war on people who do 
not wish to depart from the old methods ; we 
propose to dispel the darkness by bringing in 
the light ; thaw the ice by turning on the 
heat. We simply wish to teach a better way 
— that is all. 

Our real object is to encourage the use of 
anaesthesia in labor as the surest way to allevi- 
ate human suffering. It is gratifying to know, 
and a matter of thanksgiving to God, that a 
kind providence has thus placed before us such 
a boon, and that the new being may come 
into the world without sending especially the 
young mother into spasms of anguish. 



THE WOMAN. 

2 



" If life's insipid without mirth and love, 
Let love and mirth insipid life improve." 

" To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health, 

Partake, but never waste thy wealth, 

Or stand, with smiles, unmurmuring by 

And lighten half thy poverty ; 

Do all but close thy dying eye, 

For that I could not live to try ; 

To these alone my thoughts aspire ; 

More can I do ? Or thou require ?" — Byron, 



The Woman. ii 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WOMAN. 

MUCH has been said and written about 
woman. She has been the prolific 
theme of poets and philosophers in every age 
of the world. We, of course, have nothing 
new to offer on the subject. 

If we were to make the attempt to write 
something that has never been said or written 
the failure might be ignominious. But then 
old truths will bear restating. A hint may be 
of service where a volume might fail. 

It is not our purpose to scatter over the pages 
of this book mere " glittering generalities" 
about woman. Of her history and character 
we might offer much in both prose and poetry. 
No ; we have much to say along practical lines 
which have a wide and important bearing. 
The world has made, and is making, very 
great advance in every direction, and it is due 
mainly to the philosophy in the saying of the 
old prophet : " For precept must be upon pre- 



12 The Olive Branch. 

cept, precept upon precept; line upon line, 
line upon line ; here a little, and there a little M 
(Isa. xxviii, 10). 

Fully one half, if not more, of the world's 
population is made up of women — daughters, 
wives, mothers. She has an organization dif- 
ferent from that of man ; the divergence runs 
through the whole nature, physical, mental, 
and moral. Some one says that they are varia- 
tions from one original plan — diversity in unity ; 
all of which doubtless is true. 

But it is equally true that she is his com- 
plement — he is hers. In some directions he 
is her superior, in others she is his. Man and 
woman are adjusted to each other; each has 
qualities special and peculiar ; each is gifted 
for a particular life-work. They are in a sense 

" Diverse as the billows, 
But one as the sea." 

When she attempts to take his place, or he 
hers, the plan of nature is interfered with. 
God's order is reversed. 

Woman came after man, according to the 
Bible account of her origin ; she came from the 
hand of her Creator to be his closest compan- 
ion — to be his fellow-laborer and sufferer in 



The Woman. 13 

life. Eve was declared to be the " mother of 
all living ; " her peculiar and special mission 
was then, and is yet, to be the mother of the 
world of all living humanity, and surely the 
world needs " mothering" perhaps more than 
it needs any thing else. 

What a boon to humanity is sanctified 
womanhood ! Ah, how well do we remember 
our dear mothers ! What blessings they were 
to us ! 

Much is said about the " openings " before 
the women of this age for business — the many 
industrial avenues along which she may push 
her way, not only to a competent support, but 
to actual wealth — all of which is matter for 
thankfulness. To her is open the lecture 
platform on which she may advocate with elo- 
quent tongue the reformatory movements of 
the times ; there is work for the Master in the 
Churches, where she always has been a potent 
factor. Yet the great fact in her life is her 
womanhood ; her very existence, in a general 
way, means wifehood and maternity. To this 
her woman-heart turns as naturally as the 
flower lifts its face toward the sun. 

The little girl in your family by virtue of her 



14 The Olive Branch. 

very instincts dresses and undresses her dolls, 
and plays with them, and carries on conversa- 
tions with them by the hour. In all of this 
she is unconsciously making emphatic her real 
self — prophesying her natural future. 

We sometimes hear the remark that all a 
girl thinks about is " getting married." It is 
not so ; but if it were it would be only carry- 
ing out God's plan for her. This trait is there 
inborn, persistent ; and in the heart of the true 
woman there is no desire so dominating as that 
of bearing in her arms her own child, " bone of 
her bone, and flesh of her flesh ; M and, further- 
more, there is no height to which she may climb 
equal to this, no vocation, public or private, be 
it platform or pulpit or legislative hall, which 
compares with the dignity of motherhood. 

It would be easy to multiply words and eulo- 
gize woman to the skies. As well deliver an 
oration to point out the benefit of the sun or 
the Mississippi River. They do not need it ; it 
would be a waste of time. She does not need it. 

We do not take the position so universally 
in her favor as not to see her at all angles of 
vision. The world has had some moral mon- 
sters among its women. She has at times been 



The Woman. 15 

the leader in awful conspiracies and crimes, 
and when bad she can be superlatively so. 
But we are not speaking of or to this class. It 
has been said that the average woman has al- 
ways been better than the average man ; per- 
haps the remark is true ; but is it not true also 
that the average girl has been cared for and 
nurtured more watchfully than the average boy? 

Let us not build our theory on a single case 
or two ; if we do we shall see it vanish. No one 
can fell when looking into the face of a little 
child what its future will be ; for life is full of 
temptations, and human nature is often weak 
where it should be strong. 

It is noticeable in the myths and legends of 
nearly all the early races, which in their lux- 
urious imaginings were framed to express their 
notions of divine things, that the Fates were 
always women. The priestess or seer was the 
interpreter of the oracle who, like the witch 
of Endor, had the power, as was believed, to 
summon from the grave the shades of the de- 
parted. History tells us how, in the times 
of the French Revolution, they shut up the 
churches, abolished God by a decree of the 
convention, and put up a woman in his stead. 



16 The Olive Branch. 

We would simply ask, Why has she been so 
universally placed in the foreground and, at 
least as a symbol, been worshiped? We 
answer our own question by saying that 
it was because she represents on earth 
the divine principle of love, and love ever 
molds and fashions all things. "It is love's 
hand that guides the fortunes of the indi- 
vidual, the fate of nations, and the destinies 
of races/' 

" This deep, all-absorbing, single, wondrous 
love of woman," writes Dr. Napheys, " is some- 
thing that man cannot understand. This sea 
of unfathomable depth is a mystery. The 
shallow mind sees of it nothing but the rippling 
waves, the unstable foam-crests dashing hither 
and thither, the playful ripples of the surface, 
and, blind to the still measureless waters be- 
neath, calls woman capricious, uncertain — Va- 
riunt et mutabile. But the thinker and seer, 
undeceived by such externals, knows that 
beneath this seeming change is stability un- 
equaled in the stronger sex, a power of will 
to which man is a stranger ; a devotion 
and purpose which strikes him with wonder- 
ful awe." 



The Woman. 17 

Sir Walter Scott wrote : 

"O woman! in our hours of ease 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made ; 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou." 

The last two lines were written, we presume, to 
heal the wound made by the first four. 

" A warm, rich affection blesses the one who 
gives and the one who receives. Character 
develops under it as the plant beneath the 
sunlight. Happiness is an unknown word 
without it. Love and marriage are the only 
normal conditions of life ; without them both 
man and woman forever miss the best part of 
themselves. They suffer more ; they sin more ; 
they perish sooner ; science pronounces that 
love is a necessity." 

" Love, pure love, true love, what can we say 
of it ? The dream of youth, the cherished re- 
miniscence of age ; celebrated in the songs of 
poets ; that which impels the warrior to his 
most daring deeds, which the inspired prophet 
chooses to typify the holiest sentiments, what 
new thing is it possible to say about it ? 
Think for a moment on the history or the 



1 8 The Olive Branch. 

literature of the world. Ask the naturalist to 
reveal the mysteries of life ; let the mythologist 
explain the origin and meaning of all unre- 
vealed religions ; look within at the prompt- 
ings of your own spirit, and this whole life of 
ours will appear to you as one grand epitha- 
lamium." 

Madame de Stael, writing from a French 
stand-point, said : " Love is to man an episode, 
to woman it is the whole history of her life. 
One passion only sits enthroned in her bosom ; 
one idol only is enshrined in her heart, knowing 
no rival, no successor, this passion is love/' 

No pen-portrait of the true woman can be 
found in any language which equals that con- 
tained in the last chapter of Proverbs : " A vir- 
tuous woman who can find ? for her price is far 
above rubies. The heart of her husband trust- 
eth in her, and he shall have no lack of gain. 
She doeth him good and not evil all the days 
of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and 
worketh willingly with her hands. She is like 
the merchant-ships ; she bringeth her food from 
afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and 
giveth meat to her household, and their task 
to her maidens. She considereth a field, and 



The Woman. 19 

buyeth it: with the fruit, of her hands she 
planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins 
with strength, and maketh strong her arms. 
She perceiveth that her merchandise is profit- 
able : her lamp goeth not out by night. She 
layeth her hands to the distaff, and her hands 
hold the spindle. She spreadeth out her hand 
to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hands 
to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow 
for her household ; for all her household are 
clothed with scarlet. She maketh for herself 
carpets of tapestry ; her clothing is fine linen 
and purple. Her husband is known in the 
gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the 
land. She maketh linen garments and selleth 
them ; and delivereth girdles unto the mer- 
chant. Strength and dignity are her clothing ; 
and she laugheth at the time to come. She 
openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and the law 
of kindness is on her tongue. She looketh 
well to the ways of her household, and eateth 
not the bread of idleness. Her children rise 
up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and 
he praiseth her, saying : Many daughters have 
done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." 



THE DAUGHTER. 



' 4 O, thou child of many prayers, 

Life hath quicksands — life hath snares ! 

Care and age come unawares. 

11 Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon, 
May glides onward into June. 

11 Bear a lily in thy hand ; 
Gates of brass cannot withstand 
One touch of that magic wand. 

" Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth 
In thy heart the dew of youth, 
On thy lips the smile of truth. 

" And that smile, like sunshine, dart 

Into many a sunless heart, 

For a smile of God thou art." — Longfellow. 



The Daughter. 23 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DAUGHTER. 

A DAUGHTER in the home is a flower in 
-**• a garden. But she may be more than 
merely ornamental ; she is helpful when true- 
hearted, and is the pride of her father and 
mother. 

But such is the way of the world that she is 
not viewed as a " constant quantity;" she may 
or may not tarry long. She has a future to 
make for herself, and aspires naturally and 
rightfully to an independent destiny. She 
may not love father and mother less, but some 
one else more. It is sad, but the law does not 
relent, she but carries out in her life what God 
has put into her nature. 

According to the law of God, written in the 
Bible and expressed in nature, maternity is 
one great function of woman, and for this 
most holy mission her physical, intellectual, 
and moral constitutions have been designed. 
There are some cardinal facts in her life as 



24 The Olive Branch. 

wife and mother which must not be overlooked 
by herself. 

The inscription on an old Greek temple, 
" Know Thyself," was no more appropriate in 
the days of Aristotle than in these times of 
ours — no more appropriate to man than to 
woman, or to mature women than to girls. 
Your daughter, dear lady, is quiet and modest, 
but she is none the less thoughtful. She has 
instincts that are deep-rooted in her woman- 
nature, and she desires to know about her- 
self — has a natural right to know about her- 
self, and may get what passes for knowledge 
from some of the many ill-conceived, and fre- 
quently mischievous books and pamphlets 
addressed " to the married, " written for the 
purpose of filling the pockets of charlatans 
with the hard-earned money of over credulous 
people. 

How many an innocent and unsuspecting 
girl has sought in a clandestine way from this 
vicious class of publications the knowledge 
which she was entitled to possess, and which 
should have come to her from the purest 
source, the lips of a mother. 

There are works, written by men of science, 



The Daughter. 25 

that teach clearly the great and underlying 
principles of life, which cannot taint the purest 
soul and are within easy reach of all. 

It is a duty every mother owes her daughter 
to place in her hands the wholesome, and so 
most likely exclude that which can only poison. 
She should not allow that daughter to step into 
the new sphere, that exalted plane — married 
life, without seeing to it that she does so un- 
derstandingly. 

Thousands have dragged through miserable 
lives, and not a few have gone down to prema- 
ture graves for lack of correct knowledge of 
themselves. 

Modesty has its legitimate place, but it 
should never be allowed to rule out of human 
life the instruction that every mother ought to 
be able in a sweet and confidential way to 
communicate to her child. Make a confidante 
of your daughter, and do it very early in her 
life. If so, you will in most cases supersede 
much of the wrong that may come to the 
dear girl's mind through other confidences, she 
gaining information in a way which may prove 
exceedingly dangerous. 

Every young woman especially should be 



26 The Olive Branch. 

made acquainted with the laws of her physical 
being and the nature of the duties for which 
she was created ; to do so would be calculated 
to greatly lessen human suffering, and in the 
same ratio benefit the future wife and mother. 
Such subjects are not low and vulgar unless 
made so by coarse-minded persons, even though 
they concern de secretes mulerium ; on the other 
hand, they are lofty and pure. The words 
spoken by a mother to her child along this 
line should be delivered with a religious seri- 
ousness and earnestness becoming the relation 
between them and in keeping with the very 
great importance involved. To preserve the 
health and prolong the life of the wife and 
mother is a consideration of great importance. 
But many a much-beloved daughter is left 
to guess her way through the first years of her 
young womanhood — and we all know what 
guessing amounts to — or she " talks " with 
some girl companion who also guesses, and two 
guesses or three or a score do not equal one 
plain fact or truth spoken by a sensible mother. 
And, moreover, your daughter may fall into 
the hands of some one whose advice and 
opinions may be any thing but good, and the 



The Daughter. 27 

fair maiden you love and would sacrifice your 
life for is left to grope about in the dark, seek- 
ing light and finding none, until in her own 
life-experience she gains in the end the knowl- 
edge she should have had in the beginning. 

Does the reader recall the exquisite poem of 
Longfellow, the " Maiden," in which the tran- 
sition period in her life is so delicately alluded 
to by the poet ? 

" Standing with reluctant feet 
Where the brook and river meet, 
Womanhood and childhood fleet, 
Gazing with a timid glance 
On the brooklet's swift advance, 
On the river's broad expanse." 

If ever girl needs a mother to guide, counsel, 
and defend, it is at that important, because 
turning, period in life when the maiden's feet 
first touch the borders of that, to her, strange, 
weird land called womanhood. 

Begin in the beginning to put your very 
self into the heart and life of the child ; if you 
do the task of later years will be easier and the 
work more enduring. But if the mother, 
through that false modesty so common, fails 
in this, her solemn duty, she may be sacrificing 
a life to a mere sentiment. 



28 The Olive Branch. 

u Filial love/' writes one, " is of slow growth 
and must be fostered." We think there is 
a good deal of truth in the sentiment, and, 
if so, then the mother should use the first 
years of her girl's life, as well as that of her 
boy's, to win confidence ; she should enter the 
little heart while it is yet open to her, and 
lodge herself firmly there and for all time. 
" For is it not the great object of life to be 
loved by those we love ? May it not be said to 
be the only one which is worthy of constant ef- 
fort? To gain your child's love is to gather treas- 
ures of happiness. As time goes on each year 
narrows your own life, diminishes the circle of 
your worldly interests ; and as you grow away 
from what occupied you most in early life, and 
you have less of mind, you may have more of 
heart. Nothing is so essential as love in old age." 

The relation which a mother sustains to her 
daughter is necessarily close, for she was once 
a girl herself ; she knows what a girl's heart is 
made of, where a girl's thoughts are liable to 
run, how a girl's emotions may shape her life, 
how a thoughtless bit of imprudence may put 
in jeopardy her health as well as her moral 
reputation. She may be as pure as the morn- 



The Daughter. 29 

ing dews, as innocent as innocence itself, but 
she does not 1 now the world as her mother 
knows it, for she is only a girl ; she is unsus- 
pecting ; she has faith in people which riper 
years may shake, and so may easily become 
the victim of design and be made to suffer. 

Let the mother fail in winning the confi- 
dence of her child fully and some other person 
may usurp the place she might have held. 

Every young girl will seek knowledge and 
companionship, we have elsewhere stated. 
She will form attachments among her own sex 
in her girl-life, and exchange confidences with 
those whose society in later years she would not 
court ; she may find her heart full of bitter re- 
grets when it is too late. 

A girl left without the guiding-star of an in- 
telligent mother's counsel will ever be liable to 
form wild, romantic ideas of life, live in the 
unreal, and so find life when it comes a disap- 
pointment. 

Avoid extremes, be careful not to overdo ; 
remember the motto, in media res ; deal in es- 
sentials, in well established principles and sober 
facts. Be plain in speech, plain enough to be 
understood. 



30 The Olive Branch. 

As the rising mist may partially obscure a 
beautiful landscape, so mere hints and half- 
truths may leave in the mind of your child 
vagueness and confusion where every thing 
should be as clear as day. 

It is not necessary for you to fill the mind 
of your daughter with details which belong 
only to yourself. 

No less important is it for a mother to an- 
swer, with a prudence suggested by her in- 
stincts, the questions of her boy, and thus give 
direction to his young life which will go with 
him always. 

Not long ago we read this from a very intel- 
ligent mother : " Establishing little confidences 
and mysteries like this between a child and its 
mother must lead to a feeling of sweet inti- 
macy between them which will be perfectly 
invaluable in the child's future education. A 
boy who feels that he can speak with his 
mother of the mysteries of nature, and always 
get a clear and pure explanation of every thing 
which a boy can be allowed to know, is not 
likely to satisfy his curiosity through the im- 
pure conversation of his companions. I once 
heard of a young man saying that he thought 



The Daughter. 31 

he owed his immunity from the temptations of 
youth mainly to the fact that his mother 
had talked to him at a very early age upon 
subjects which most mothers would shrink 
from touching upon with their boys. Her 
pure explanations of facts which might other- 
wise have come to the boy impurely had left 
an indelible impression which was never after- 
ward effaced. Of course a mother's own mind 
must be pure before she can communicate 
purity to the mind of her children/' 

If any father's eye falls on this page let him 
pause and ask himself the question, What do 
I owe my growing boy ? 

He had, at least in part, his existence from 
me ; have I no part in shaping that existence ? 
Have I no responsibilities for what he may or 
w r hat he may not be in the life he is living ? 
Fathers, begin early to make companions of 
your boys. " Learn the delightful art," says 
one, " of amusing your child. Your heart will 
gain its sweetest emotions in the practice, 
and the mind its best stimulus." 

We once knew of a gentleman, a plain 
farmer at that, who had a number of sons 
all young in years. But the man himself was 



32 The Olive Branch. 

noted all through the neighborhood for his 
good sense and moral uprightness. He was 
the surveyor whose skill in the use of the 
compass and chain determined the farm bound- 
aries, and thus he was often a peace-maker 
between belligerent land-owners. He wrote 
the wills, made out deeds when property 
changed hands, was chief arbitrator in local 
disputes. He was looked up to as a very wise 
man. His boys, too, were regarded as manly al- 
most beyond their years. Well, Mr. H was 

in the habit of calling around him these sons 
when any special work was to be done, and 
counseling with them as if they were men ; 
it did serve somewhat to make men of them. 

The most delicate subjects, remember, can 
be treated by intelligent mothers, and fathers, 
too, with entire freedom, and yet in language 
most chaste. Instill into the mind of your 
child by your own diction a love for the pure 
and good, and thus create an abhorrence for 
any and every thing coarse and obscene. We 
have but to look back to our own childhood 
days to know what our pure-minded chil- 
dren are exposed to to-day, no matter how 
carefully we guard them. But it is possible 



The Daughter, 33 

so to fill them with the pure and the good in 
thought, sentiment, and word that they will 
instinctively turn away from the vulgarity 
which will be certain to confront them almost 
every-where in life. 

On the continent of Europe girls have far 
less freedom than here in America. It is very 
likely that while parents and guardians there 
go to one extreme of espionage, we swing to 
the other. There the girls are shut up in con- 
vents and seminaries, and are kept strictly un- 
der the guard of some person. In Spain it is 
the dne7ina, in France the chaperon, in Ger- 
many some one who answers to the same office. 
The girl cannot go anywhere excepting as she 
is accompanied by mother, aunt, cousin, or 
some other relative who makes it her business 
to be a witness to every interview which a 
young lady may have with an admirer. 

A young man never dreams of walking out 
with her, taking her out to drive, or seeing her 
alone anywhere. If he does invite her com- 
pany for a walk or a drive the invitation, as a 
matter of course, is understood to include the 
aunt, cousin, or other relative. 

With us it is different. Our girls have the 



34 The Olive Branch. 

utmost personal liberty, and while in some 
instances it may be too large, yet there is 
a value in the sense of self-reliance which it 
fosters. 

Every mother must be her own judge of the 
proprieties of life. She needs to guard the 
daughter without undermining her self-respect 
or weakening her power of self-protection. 



THE WIFE. 



" Of earthly good the best is a good wife; 

A bad, the bitterest curse of life." — Simonides. 

" A strange new life was in her breast; 

Her eyes were full of wondrous dreams; 
She sailed all whiles from crest to crest 

Of a broad ocean, through whose gleams 
She saw an island wrapped in rest ! 

" And as she drove across the sea, 

Toward the fair port that fixed her gaze, 

Her life was like a rosary 

Whose slowly-counted beads were days 

Of prayer for one that ought to be." — Dr. Holland. 



The Wife. 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE WIFE. 

WE have a few words to offer on this rela- 
tion of woman. We see in it a connecting 
link between the woman and the mother ; all 
are included in the one general idea. The 
wife may not be a mother. She may, from 
perverted notions of life, from the love of 
selfish ease, or from devotion to society, be 
averse to it, or from her age, or from some 
other reason hidden away in the secrecy of nat- 
ure, she may not reach this lofty pinnacle, ever 
to her profound sorrow. A childless wife is to 
be commiserated. 

It is a pitiable sight to look upon two old 
people, sitting in their easy-chairs as the sun of 
life approaches the western horizon, simply 
waiting for the " change that cometh," with 
no child or children to think of them or cheer, 
with their presence or comforting words and 
loving deeds, their declining years. 

It is not always so, but sometimes it is the 



38 The Olive Branch. 

penalty enacted for selfishness in early life. 
But when such denials come providentially, 
and the boon of posterity is withheld, it must 
be for some purpose beyond the ken of mor- 
tals. 

The average girl the world over looks for- 
ward, as she steps into the realm of woman- 
hood, to marriage and a home of her own. 
Why should she not foster such an expecta- 
tion when her whole being is planned for it ? 
Nothing but a spurious delicacy or our igno- 
rance can prevent our full recognition of the 
fact that love looks to marriage and marriage 
to offspring as a natural and heaven-appointed 
consequence. All this comes into the life of 
woman — prospectively into the life of the 
young woman. 

Every girl is intelligent enough to know 
what it means when the marriage rite is 
solemnized and she steps into the arena of 
wifehood. She does not know it all ; she sees 
it under the enchantment of distance — sees the 
bright side, the romantic side of it, and lives 
in fond expectations of the perfect realiza- 
tion of innumerable dreams — sees the picture 
painted by her innocent girlish fancy. There 



The Wife. 39 

are realities awaiting her, cares, burdens, clouds, 
alas ! incident to life which even marriage, how- 
ever blissful, cannot avert ; but these only 
serve, when rightly received, to make the heart 
strong, the love deeper and purer. It is then 
and under these conditions that love has its 
greatest proof, and thus is evermore enriched. 
A happy marriage — a perfect union, they twain 
one flesh — is the type of the independent com- 
plete being. Without the other either is defect- 
ive. " Marriage," said Napoleon, " is strictly 
indispensable to happiness." 

There falls upon her pathway someday, and 
possibly when least expected, a light — a pres- 
ence. She sees in the eye of some young man 
a peculiar luster, a luster only born of love. 
Her womanly instinct interprets it at once. 
She feels the beating of a warm heart keeping 
time with her own heart-throbs; she is wonder- 
fully restful in that avowed affection and 
proffered hand. 

The days pass ; the months creep away too 
tardily. She is spending these times in the 
bewitching glamour of a sacred engagement; 
only one thought fills the mind, only one aim 
of life now animates her soul ; all her interest 



40 The Olive Branch. 

centers in and about the one she tenderly calls 
her own, her choice out of all the worlds 
millions of men. 

By and by the marriage-bells peal out their 
joyful tones ; there is a wedding ; two hearts 
are solemnly welded into one by the holiest of 
ministries. Friends come with best wishes ; 
congratulations are showered upon them ; pres- 
ents are given, the bridal trip is taken, and the 
bark is launched upon the great sea of matri- 
monial life, to enjoy the calm, to struggle with 
the blasts, to reach some happy port in the far- 
away or sink into the abyss — which? 

But here and now a new plane is reached by 
this woman. What does this all mean ? We 
reply, the most sacred and important of all 
human relations. It is of God, and is in ac- 
cordance with his law, for has he not written : 
" It is not good that the man should be alone ; 
I will make him an helpmeet for him. . . . There- 
fore shall a man leave his father and his mother, 
and shall cleave unto his wife : and they shall 
be one flesh " (Gen. ii, 18, 24). All this means 
more than mere companionship, more than 
simple pleasure; it means nezv life; but that 
implies risk, sorrow, sickness, self-denial, depri- 



The Wife. 41 

vation to some extent, loss of general society, 
etc. And what now, in view of all these facts, 
occurs with startling frequency ? There is a 
study of how to escape these dreaded con- 
ditions — not dreadful conditions — these re- 
sponsibilities, cares, and self-denials. Nature is 
cheated, God's laws are violated ; but that is 
not all ; charlatans are invoked to bring relief, 
and the life that might be — ought to be — so 
precious and joy-giving is sacrificed, lost for- 
ever to the great world. Nor is this the whole 
story. The charge of murder sometimes lies at 
the door of these selfish people. O, what a 
fearful revelation will be made in the great day 
of accounts ! Back yonder in Eden the Lord 
said unto Cain, " Where is Abel, thy brother? " 
Will he not say to many a man and woman, 
Where is thy child ? 

What if the fathers and mothers of thousands 
of the world's great men and women had re- 
sorted to the despicable arts of the ghouls that 
for money prey on society even in high places 
— what would the world have lost ? O, be- 
ware how you lay hands on God's anointed ! 

And yet, after all, it is not much to be won- 
dered at that the delicately reared maiden 
•4 



42 The Olive Branch. 

should naturally shrink back from the ordeal 
through which she knows she must pass as a 
wife, unless nature fails in her laws, or un- 
less she resorts to the misdirected skill of 
modern times. She is conscious all the while 
of the dread in her heart of motherhood, but 
love rules there, and so she surrenders to her 
fate. Perhaps some old-timer, who will live 
nowhere but in the past, who believes that God 
is angry with all the women of the world for 
that one act of Eve, comes to her, saying : 

'■' Bear up ! for patience must endure ; 
And soothe the woes it cannot cure ; " 

"this is God's way, and you must submit." 
She reasons that it is not so bad as people have 
said ; if others have endured the trial she can, 
and she will ; that is noble, that is heroic. 
Her mother instincts rise like a tide above all 
the dark forebodings, and so she awaits the 
coming day of her deliverance, but waits with 
a feeling of dread she but illy conceals. 

It is not an uncommon thing for the young 
expectant mother to make plans for the dispo- 
sition of her effects in case she does not safely 
pass' the crucial point. Now, we all know that 
the deaths from this cause are few in com- 



The Wife. 43 

parison with the myriads of births that occur. 
Nature does indeed lend her support to woman 
in this great trial, and the ordeal is generally 
passed in safety so far as life itself is concerned ; 
but it is at the cost of a wonderful draught on 
her vitality. Many thousands of bright and 
promising girls have succumbed to this strain, 
and ever afterward the face has worn a pecul- 
iar pallor ; the rose has faded from the cheek ; 
the system has suffered from some impairment, 
and often it is so great as seriously to affect 
life. 

" Deep grief dejects and wrings the tortured soul." 

Then the vow is taken that no more will she 
allow herself to undergo the strain incident to 
childbirth. Not very long ago a gentleman of 
our acquaintance, a man of ample fortune, said 
to us after the confinement of his wife with 
her third child, that under no circumstances 
would he ever again be willing to see her pass 
through such a trial. Her labor had continued 
through about two days in the old-fashioned 
way. Anaesthesia was not used. It is not 
strange that he felt as he did, for thousands 
feel the same way, though they may not be 
willing to confess it. Woman often suffers in 



44 The Olive Branch. 

silence. She feels she must. Of many a one 
it may be said : 

"With wonted fortitude she bore the smart, 
And not a groan confessed her burning heart." 

We say that it is not at all to save women 
from death in childbirth that we present the 
claims of anaesthesia, though it may save many, 
but from so much needless suffering. 

It is not to be wondered at that under some 
circumstances a babe is not wanted. It, poor 
little creature, is not to blame for its existence ; 
it does not mean to lay burdens on any body or 
cast a shadow in any household with its pres- 
ence. If it but knew of the unwelcome await- 
ing it by those who gave it being, it would hie 
away to the land of sunshine, where the arms 
of the good Shepherd fold such in tenderness. 

The advent of a babe in many a home is 
looked forward to with feelings of " genuine 
horror/' as expressed in the following extract 
from BabyJwod Magazine : 

" Is not the cause of the ceaseless worry and 
annoyance and unhappiness which are so often 
met with in rearing children, and the dread 
and dislike some women have for children, due 
somewhat to heredity? 



The Wife. 45 

" I have in mind a family of five children 
which illustrates my thought perfectly. The 
mother was not long a happy wife. She was 
poorly provided for from the beginning, but 
was young and hopeful. Before the first 
baby's birth, however, she had learned the true 
character of her reckless and cruel husband. 
When her second little girl came she had very 
little with which to help herself, and as the 
years went by there was less and less. Every 
garment that could possibly be used was cut 
up for the children, and at last she was reduced 
to one calico dress, and when that was worn 
through to the lining it was replaced by one 
given her by a neighbor. There was nothing 
in the house at times to eat, and every few 
weeks she was left alone to provide for herself. 
No wonder that each little one was anticipated 
with genuine horror! No wonder that that 
horror is stamped upon the heart of every one 
of the living children ! Seven came in that un- 
fortunate union. Two were taken away. All 
the remaining five are prosperous men and 
women to-day; but all have a nervous dread 
of small children, and in two cases an honest, 
unconquerable dislike." 



46 The Olive Branch. 

Bat even in the midst of heart-crushing sur- 
roundings such as these, if only grace can be 
summoned from on high to lift the spirit up 
and keep the mind in as peaceful a state as 
possible, the reward will come in sweet-tem- 
pered children all the more easily taken care 
of. We have in mind an instance where the 
expected arrival of a fifth child was a matter 
of distress to the mother. She felt that she 
could not endure the suffering to which she 
felt herself doomed by this event. But the 
little fellow had set out on his journey, and in 
due time made his appearance on the scene. 
But how is it to-day? That mother is in good 
health, and that babe, now a young man far 
up in his teens, is her pride ; he is the most 
helpful and, in some ways, the most promising 
of all her children — industrious, economical, 
thoughtful of her — and it would not be strange 
if some day in the hereafter under his own 
roof that dear mother should spend her last 
days amid peace and plenty. Remember the 
lines in Cowper's hymn : 

" The clouds ye so much dread 
Are big with mercy, and may break 
With blessings on your head." 



The Wife. 47 

So when the inevitable does come, as it 
surely will, dear reader, though your heart 
may be so full of anguish at what you may un- 
righteously deem a misfortune, that you are 
ready to die, especially if the one you call 
husband is neglectful, or heartless, or is a 
drunkard, yet, though on the verge of despair, 
you can look away to Him who hath said, " For 
in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his 
pavilion : in the secret of his tabernacle shall 
he hide me ; he shall set me up upon a rock " 
(Psa. xxvii, 5). Ah ! there is much in many a life 
which makes the mother dread the coming of 
each little one. But still is there not a way by 
which mothers may give to their sons and 
daughters cheerful hearts and a love for the 
little creatures that must come to them in the 
course of time ? Then, while our boys and 
girls are growing into manhood and woman- 
hood, is there not ample opportunity for 
teaching them that a baby is the crowning 
blessing of a life, and giving them every pos- 
sible means of learning the ways of babies, and 
the care also, so that when the time comes the 
helplessness may not increase the dislike? 
" Some years ago, while visiting a friend/' 



43 The Olive Branch. 

writes one, " who had an eight months' old 
babe, and, offering to hold it, I was greatly 
surprised to hear her say, ' Do not feel obliged 
to hold that baby ; I never liked babies when 
I was a girl, and I don't expect any one to like 
mine ! ' The same woman said when she was 
the mother of three little ones that even then 
she did not know of six children in the world 
besides her own that she could endure to have 
come near her. What effect upon the nature 
of her two girls and little boy will such a feel- 
ing, harbored all these years, have?" 

Thank God for the discoveries of science. 
Science is helping the world in every sphere 
of life; it increases manifold the store of the 
world's comfort, and greatly augments the 
power of man; with its aid one becomes the 
equal of many under the old regime. Here it 
may almost be said, that " One shall chase a 
thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight/' 

We boast of this age as an age of science ; 
we write books about it, and well we may, for 
it is wonderful ; we hear so much about elec- 
tricity, telephones, dynamite, and what not? 
Why not hold a general thanksgiving on be- 
half of universal womanhood that science has, 



The Wife. 49 

after these thousands of years, come to the re- 
lief of the wife's heart, taking away the dread 
of childbirth ? 

Under this method no woman needs to have 
any fear or dread, nor need she suffer any se- 
rious pain of travail or inconvenience. The 
long, dark night has really passed ; the light 
has dawned. Anaesthesia is the Revelation of 
science to woman. 

If sin has caused the sorrows and sufferings 
of humanity, according to the account of the 
fall recorded in the Book of Genesis, it is cer- 
tainly in the heart of our heavenly Father to 
forgive sin, else he is not a father. Mercy does 
at any rate shed a radiance over justice, and so 
in the provisions of nature — and nature is but 
an expression of God's thought, his laws form- 
ulated, there is an antidote, a beautiful side to 
it all. Good is every-where, and God is every- 
where ; the dew-drop as much as the planet in 
space tells of God. 

14 Compassion proper to mankind appears, 
Which nature witnessed when she gave us tears.' 

Why should any body, physician or layman, 
stand out against this harmless effort to save 
womankind from sufferings that are nowhere 



50 The Olive Branch. 

else paralleled ? That many do oppose this 
method on one pretext and another we know ; 
but why? Let him answer who can or will. 
The use of anaesthesia in labor is no more of a 
risk than in surgery, and there its use is con- 
stant, even in minor operations, such as the 
amputation of a finger or extracting a tooth, 
the subject possibly a strong man. There 
may be solitary instances, and they are not 
numerous, where the cultured physician will 
see it best from scientific grounds not to use it ; 
he can be trusted for this. But in every case, un- 
less it be clearly and strongly contra-indicated, 
let the mother have the benefit of that which 
will relieve her of the sufferings and perils of 
maternity. Long experience by some very 
eminent physicians goes to show that even in 
cases where it might seem to be injurious it is 
found not to be. This is clearly stated in 
Chapters VII, VIII, and IX, by Dr. D. M. 
Barr, to which the reader is referred. 



THE MOTHER. 



" There is not a property in nature but a mind is born to 
seek and find it. For it is not the plants or the animals, in- 
numerable as they are, nor the whole magazine of material 
nature that can give the sum of power, but the infinite appli- 
cability of these things in the hands of thinking man ; every 
new application being equivalent to a new material." — Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

11 The scientific world as a whole will never abandon a po- 
sition because denounced by the theological world — not even 
because it seems to be in conflict with sound theology. Sci- 
entific evidence is of such a nature as always to command the 
respect and the assent of the bulk of reasoning men." — Dr. 
Winchell. 



The Mother. 53 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MOTHER. 

WOMAN'S mission as mother is truly a 
divine one. Think of it! The bring- 
ing into life a human being ; and though it were 
better if some men, and some women, too, " had 
never been born," yet we must remember the 
noble spirits who have blessed the world in all 
ages and all lands, every one of whom came into 
being through the channels of motherhood. 
Go back into history and remember that Moses 
and Paul, Luther and Wesley, Washington and 
Lincoln, were born of women. Were they 
worth the sorrow and the care they caused ? 
Such a question needs no answer. 

It is interesting to note how in all times and 
all countries she has been treated with consid- 
erate kindness and marked deference, and 
what special honor has always been attached to 
the office of mother among the people of the 
far East. She has been made the subject 
of public veneration, and sometimes even of 



54 The Olive Branch. 

religious homage. At Athens, we are informed, 
as also at Carthage, the murderer who had es- 
caped from the sword of justice, if he sought 
and found refuge in the house of a pregnant 
woman, was secure. The Jews allowed her to 
eat forbidden meats. The laws of Moses pro- 
nounced the penalty of death against all those 
who, by bad treatment or any act of violence, 
caused a woman to abort. Lycurgus compared 
women who died in pregnancy to the brave 
dead on the field of honor, and accorded to 
them sepulchral inscriptions. In ancient 
Rome, where all citizens were obliged to rise 
and stand during the passage of a magistrate, 
wives were excused from rendering this mark 
of respect, for the reason that the exertion and 
hurry of the movement might be injurious to 
them in the state in which they were supposed 
to be. In the kingdom of Pannonia all enceinte 
women were held in such veneration that a man 
meeting one on the road was obliged, under 
penalty of a fine, to turn back and accompany 
and protect her to her place of destination. The 
Roman Catholic Church has in all times ex- 
empted pregnant wives from fasts. The Egyp- 
tians decreed, and in most Christian countries 



The Mother. 55 

the law at the present time obtains, that if a 
woman shall be convicted of an offense the 
punishment of which is death, the sentence 
shall not be executed if it be proved that she 
is to become a mother. 

It has been well said by Madame de Sirey,that 
" the women who comprehend well their rights 
and duties as mothers of families certainly can- 
not complain of their destiny. If there exists 
any inequality in the means of pleasure accorded 
to the two sexes it is in favor of the woman. 
The mother who lives in her children and her 
grandchildren has the peculiar privilege of not 
knowing the grief of becoming old." 

" Among the Romans it was enacted," says 
one writer of history, " that married women 
who had borne three children, or if a freed 
woman four, had special privileges of their 
own in case of inheritance, and were exempted 
from tutelage. Juvenal has recorded the rev- 
erence paid in Rome to the newly-made 
mother, and the sign by which her house was 
designated and protected from rude intruders, 
namely, by the suspension of wreaths over the 
door. At various times and in various coun- 
tries legislators have made laws discriminating 



56 The Olive Branch. 

in favor of matrons, justly regarding the family 
as the source of the wealth and prosperity 
of the State. Louis XIV., we are informed, 
granted, by special edict in 1660, certain pen- 
sions to parents of ten children, with an in- 
crease for those who had twelve or more." 

Motherhood is not by any means joyless, 
though it implies much in the way of sorrow and 
anxiety ; but then every thing is born in some 
way out of trial; it is a law of nature. If 
the mother die in the ordeal of childbirth, or 
as the consequence, which is sometimes the 
case, it is only another illustration of this great 
law so universal. Dr. Holland's beautiful poem 
expresses it : 

" Earth is a sepulcher of flowers, 

Whose vitalizing mold 
Through boundless transmutation towers 

In green and gold. 

" The oak-tree, struggling with the blast, 

Devours its father tree. 
And sheds its leaves and drops its mast, 

That more may be." 

This great law, so emphatic in the material 
world, is not less manifest in human life. The 
pathway of progress every-where seems to be 
through change and conflict. The thought 



The Mother. 57 

saddens one, as well as startles. The revolu- 
tions which have swept over states and nations 
have had their parallel and their prophecy in 
the destruction and decay in nature which ever 
ushers in the new and brighter life. 

The beginning is soon followed by the end 
of life in the plant-world about us ; so we are 
born, we die ; and between these there is a per- 
petual struggle. Life is a battle. 

Some one says that every step we take is 
an unconscious effort made to keep us from 
falling. One thing dies that another may live. 
Life is born out of death. To flourish, there 
must be the fading. Even nations grow out of 
tombs, as some plants spring from the crevices 
in the rocks. The everlasting hills, though 
buttressed on the granites which nature's fires 
have formed, must crumble, but in the crum- 
bling they form the soil that nourishes the 
plant, giving beauty to the landscape and food 
to man and beast and bird. 

That is a mysterious Scripture, say some, 
when referring to the curse of Eden, " I will 
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy concep- 
tion ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. 1 ' 

Ah, indeed, what sad memories lie along this 
5 



58 The Olive Branch. 

line ! How true it all is ! One fairly shudders 
to think of what women, in all ages and in all 
lands, ever since the beginning of history, have 
been compelled to endure. Many and many a 
young wife who dreamed only of love and hap- 
piness, as vistas of a great bright future opened 
up before her vision, has closed her eyes to all 
the world's charms in giving to the world her 
first babe. Is it not a mystery? Do you say 
you wish that Scripture had not been written ? 
Ah, but it is nature ! 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of children are 
born every hour through the circling year, and 
often is the mother, unattended by physician, 
living in poverty, deprived possibly of the com- 
mon comforts of life. Aye, and it may be 
neglected, as is often the case, by the one who 
of all should be most considerate and tender. 

This is a dark picture, we confess, but it is 
" true to nature. " 

But let us refer again to the Scriptures and 
see if there may not be some gleam of light, 
however faint. How far out does this Edenic 
curse reach, we ask ? " And unto Adam he said, 
Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice 
of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which 



The Mother. 59 

I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat 
of it : cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in 
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring 
forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of 
the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground. " 
(Gen. iii, 17-19.) 

There is " sorrow " to woman in the throes of 
maternity. " Sorrow " to man as he plows, 
plants, and reaps ; but is there any compar- 
ison between the two ? Precious little plow- 
ing and planting he would do if it had to be 
done in agonizing throes and physical tort- 
ures. 

No doubt man has labored and sorrowed and 
sweat a good deal over hard fields. The labor 
made his arm strong and his spirit cour- 
ageous ; the sweat was good for him ; the man 
who can sweat freely at his work finds relief in 
it from other troubles, but the sorrow in his 
case is at the minimum. 

But look now and see him in the dawn of 
this new age — the age of science and machinery 
— and what changes have come over the world 
in the way of ameliorating labor! Men need 



60 The Olive Branch. 

not now anywhere do as they did in the olden 
times, bend their backs almost to the breaking 
point over the old-fashioned scythe and sickle 
in harvesting their crops. Nay, they ride over 
their fields on handsome reapers and mowers, 
with canopies over their heads to protect them 
from the sun's hot rays. 

They harness that omnipotent something we 
call force to their industrial implements, and 
thus hard toil is often abolished and pleasure 
takes its place. The curse pronounced in 
Eden on man seems to have lost its force and 
meaning in modern times. 

Are we by this modern method merely dodg- 
ing that curse ? Are we baffling his plans for 
punishing sin? Then away with labor-saving 
machinery ; let us go back to the rude imple- 
ments of ancient times, so that we can suffer 
the curse in its fullness forever. Shall we? 

Nay, nay ! We are but availing ourselves of 
a divine right, that of bettering our condition 
by using the means which a merciful God has 
placed within our reach, and he is inexcusable 
who refuses their benefits. 

What, then, if the decree of sorrow did go 
forth to universal womanhood, in the way re- 



The Mother. 6i 

lated ? Yet may she not avail herself of a dis- 
covery of science ? Must she be denied the use 
of agents which the Father has placed within 
her easy reach, and thus escape in a large degree, 
to say the least, the pains and risks incident to 
child-bearing ? To deny her this comfort is to 
deprive her of a boon that can only be consid- 
ered as heaven-sent. 

There are some books in the market which, 
while they are meritorious along certain lines, 
are not to be wholly accepted without inquiry. 
They lay great stress on a purely " fruit diet " 
for the mother during the period of gestation. 
They cite very many cases where the prospect- 
ive mother subsisted almost entirely for many 
months on fruit, and as a reward was blessed 
with an easy delivery, sometimes with little 
or no pain. 

In all cases it is claimed that the bones of 
the babe were soft and flexible, owing, of course, 
to the great absence of lime. So many a 
mother has denied herself in this way in the 
desperate hope of being exempt from the fear- 
ful suffering which almost always attends 
childbirth. But there is, as science has fully 
demonstrated, a better way. So why the need 



62 The Olive Branch. 

through all these long months of self-depriva- 
tion of the foods which the appetite craves — 
nature's demands which are so forcibly voiced — 
when by a few inhalations of the simple mixt- 
ure, the formula of which is elsewhere in this 
book carefully laid down, without even losing 
consciousness, the mother may, with muscles re- 
laxed, rest with comparative ease and comfort, 
while Dame Nature, left to herself, works out 
the wonderful problem which has shocked and 
puzzled the ages, leaving the mother with no 
haunting memories of the day her child was 
born? 

And, furthermore, according to some very 
eminent practitioners, the exclusive fruit diet, 
carried to such an extreme, is likely to impov- 
erish the blood which, at such a time nature is 
disposed to provide, needs to be especially 
rich for the sake of the child. So that too 
exclusive a fruit diet may impair the health 
of both mother and infant. 

While the theory has its advocates, yet 
many persons who have tried the experiment 
testify to what they consider ill results in the 
child. A lady whom we know well was "de- 
termined," as she expressed it, not to have a 



The Mother. 63 

large babe. It was her first, and she was past 
thirty. She followed the regular regime " laid 
down in the books/' but when baby came his 
appetite was large, if he was not. He had not 
been half nourished ; he was ravenous for food ; 
his cries were pitiful. 

Our dentists inform us that a mother may 
do much toward preserving her own teeth, 
which generally suffer under these maternal 
conditions, as well as to provide for good teeth 
in her child, which begin to form several 
months before it is born. She should there- 
fore eat freely of bone-making food. And all 
this can be done with perfect impunity by the 
little woman who arms herself in time with the 
anaesthetic mixture and inhaler elsewhere de- 
scribed in this book, or at least insists on her 
right to have it administered by the attending 
accoucheur. She should assert herself now if 
ever. 

But in all we have said we do not underrate 
the salutary effects of good fruit and plenty 
of it ; it is wholesome, and its free use in rea- 
sonable quantities can only be advantageous 
to both mother and child. 

We have no patience with those belated 



64 The Olive Branch. 

people who insist that woman must be held 
under the " curse," who, against the plea for 
the use of anaesthesia in labor, quote the Bible 
to prove that God's nature has in it no element 
of mercy. 

None are so blind as those who will not see. 
Galileo invented the telescope with which he 
observed the satellites of Jupiter, and invited 
a man who was opposed to him to look 
through it, that he might see Jupiter's moons 
for himself. The man refused, saying, " If I 
should see them how could I maintain my opin- 
ions which I have advanced against your philoso- 
phy ? " The same view is held concerning this 
practice. Do not try it unless you are willing 
to be convinced. What means all these possi- 
bilities in the natural world ? Why should 
any remedy be used to cure us of disease ? 
Are not disease, pain, and death designed for 
a purpose ? What does science do for us in 
all ways ? Why this power to unfold and bring 
out the things the Father has prepared for us? 

A merchant walks to his telephone and con- 
verses with some one miles away, and then re- 
marks, as one did to us the other day, " This 
saves a great many steps and a good deal of 



The Mother. 65 

time." Yes, but is not walking good exercise ? 
And did not God ordain that men should 
walk? And is not time plenty? Every thing 
in the natural world has been given to human 
kind for some use, even poisons, substance, 
force, every thing. If, therefore, chemistry of- 
fers to suffering womanhood a solace, a help, 
it is of God ; and so while the book says, " In 
sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," nature 
cries out loudly, saying, Reach forth the hand 
and I will give you a blessing from God which 
he offers freely to his children. 



THE BABE. 



" And he set a little child in the midst of them " — [Jesus], 

" Ah ! what would the world be to us 

If the children were no more ? 
We should dread the desert behind us 

Worse than the dark before. 

" What the leaves are to the forest, 

With light and air for food, 
Ere their sweet and tender juices 

Have been hardened into wood, 

" That to the world are children ; 

Through them it feels the glow 
Of a brighter and sunnier climate 

Than reaches the trunks below. 

11 Come to me, O ye children ! 

And whisper in my ear 
What the birds and the winds are singing 

In your sunny atmosphere." — Longfellow. 



The Babe. 69 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE BABE. 

WE think it was Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes who said the time to begin the 
education of a child is a hundred years before 
it is born. The remark is full of sound sense 
and good philosophy. But we wish here to deal 
in the shorter period first. We wish to say a few 
words to the young maiden of fifteen or sixteen 
who may chance to find this little book lying on 
her mother's dressing-bureau, and proceeds to 
read it " on the sly." 

We are not afraid to have it fall into the 
hands of any pure-minded young girl, for there 
is not a word or sentence within its covers that 
could possibly do her any harm. On the other 
hand, great good might come to her. and 
would come to all if young people were in- 
structed in an intelligent manner on the 
themes included within the circle of this book, 
for they will know, must know, about them ; 
and often have their minds been filled with 



jo The Olive Branch. 

the crudest and sometimes the most absurd no- 
tions. Is it not far better that knowledge so 
vital as this should be obtained legitimately ? 

As we have elsewhere stated, every young 
woman expects some day to be mistress of her 
own house and to hold in her arms her own 
babe. She, if a true woman, is blissful at the 
very thought. What nobler ambition could stir 
her heart ? None. What is there in life any 
purer or sweeter than an innocent, helpless 
babe ? The Father above has arranged things 
wisely. The young animal comes into life 
much stronger in body than the young human 
being. In a day or two, and at times in an 
hour, it is on its feet and is very soon walking, 
running, and playing. It is soon a mature be- 
ing, forgotten and discarded by its mother. 
The colt at two or three years is harnessed 
before the loaded wagon and expected to do 
its share of hard work. The parent bird in a 
few weeks at most pushes her birdlings out of 
the nest and compels them to try their own 
wings, saying by the act, " Now shift for your- 
selves/* They are soon gone and forgotten, 
and the relation of parent and child has no 
meaning. 



The Babe. 71 

But it is not so in the life of mankind. The 
babe is a helpless creature — nothing could be 
more so — and it remains so for a number of 
years. It must be fed, clothed, and cared for 
by night and by day. Desert it, and it must 
soon perish. A year passes, but it is the same 
helpless, dependent little thing ; two years, 
and still it is unable to do any thing for itself; 
three years roll away, and it can do nothing 
toward procuring food or clothing ; four years, 
and it is still weak in body and mind ; five years, 
six years, seven years, and yet a mere child, for 
whom some one must constantly care. But in 
all of this there is plan. The child grows to- 
ward its maturity slowly, that it may be trained, 
cultivated, developed spiritually and mentally, 
and thus be fitted for a destination to which 
mere animal nature does not tend or aspire. 

Every child born into the world inherits 
much ; sometimes it is a tendency to disease, 
if not disease itself, and through its whole life it 
is fated to bear an entailed burden of physical 
infirmity and suffering. 

We once heard a lecturer compare the re- 
lationship between the body and mind like to 
that between the cloth and the lining of a gar- 



*]2 The Olive Branch. 

ment ; if you wrinkle one you wrinkle the other. 
The effect of the mind upon the body is now 
well known. Strong, long-continued mental 
emotion may induce or cure disease. " Heart 
disease," says a recent medical writer, " may be 
produced by a morbid direction of the thoughts 
to that organ. Warts disappear under the 
operation of a strong belief in the efficacy of 
some nonsensical application. In olden times 
scrofula, or the ' king's evil,' was cured by a 
touch of the king. The mind of the patient 
of course accomplished the cure. Under the 
influence of profound mental emotion the hair 
of the beautiful Marie Antoinette became 
white in a short time. During the solitary 
voyage of Madame Condinne down the wild 
and lonely Amazon a similar change took 
place. Many other instances might be ad- 
duced, but those given are sufficient to show 
that strong and persistent mental impressions 
will exert a mysterious transforming power 
over the body." 

This shows how the mental and moral states 
of the mother may affect the life of her unborn 
child. Too much emphasis cannot be placed 
on the question of inheritance. Physical char- 



The Babe. 73 

acteristics, we are told by Dr. Dunglison, are a 
common inheritance. He mentions the aqui- 
line nose which for centuries has run through 
the house of Bourbon — the peculiar lip of the 
House of Hapsburg, the fixed physiognomy of 
the descendants of Abraham, etc. It is well 
known that children of tall people are tall ; 
blondes procreate blondes; the hair, the tem- 
perament; longevity, deformities, gait, gestures, 
voice, all are transmissible from parent to child, 
in which the mother plays an important part, 
as physiology has fully determined. So dis- 
ease, gout, obesity, asthma, cancer, affections 
of the skin, etc., are inherited. 

The impression conveyed to the brain through 
the sense of sight has been a well-known law of 
animal life ever since the days of Jacob. And 
this includes the human race. The ancient 
Greeks were a people renowned not less for 
their personal beauty than their valor. They 
seemed to understand this physico-mental law 
of impressions, for in their apartments they were * 
lavish of statues and paintings representing 
the gods and goddesses, delineated in accord- 
ance with the best models of art. Dionysius, 
tyrant of Syracuse, we are informed, caused 



74 The Olive Branch. 

the portrait of the beautiful Jason to be sus- 
pended before the nuptial couch in order that 
he might obtain a handsome child. Alcibiades 
was spoken of as among the handsomest of the 
Greeks of his day ; he descended from an an- 
cestry noted for personal beauty. So long has 
this kind of inheritance been recognized that 
there existed in Crete an ancient law which or- 
dained that each year the most beautiful among 
the young men and women should be selected, 
and compelled to marry in order to perpetuate 
the type of their beauty. " Like begets like " 
is an old saying and expresses a well-known law 
in the animal economy. A scar half an inch 
long on the arm of a child will be much longer 
when the child has grown to maturity ; it grows 
with its growth by the law here stated. 

If all men and women were beautiful their 
children would partake of the same quality ; 
but they are not. 

The body of the child is influenced by the 
mind of the parent, particularly that of the 
mother. " A mind habitually filled with pleas- 
ant fancies and charming images is not without 
its effects upon the offspring." The statues of 
Apollo, Venus, Hebe, and other gods and god- 



The Babe. 75 

desses which were so numerous in all gardens 
and public places in Greece, it has been said, 
reproduced themselves in the sons and daugh- 
ters of the passers-by. 

It is pitiable, but inevitable, that an innocent 
babe must be thus the subject of evil as well 
as of good. All this is not because God wills 
it to be so, but the sins of the fathers are in 
fact, by a law of nature, visited upon the chil- 
dren. There must be law, and it must be uni- 
form and impartial. It is not the plan of our 
heavenly Father that a poor man's cottage 
shall burn to ashes, but if, through carelessness 
or by accident, it takes fire, he will not annul 
the great law of combustion to save it from 
ruin. The laws of health should be especially 
studied by all who contemplate parenthood, 
and this law in particular, which runs like a 
silver thread between mother and child. 

Children inherit mental traits, dispositions, 
from their parents as well as physical, and so, 
my dear girl, as you expect some future day to 
be a mother, begin to-day the cultivation of 
those qualities of heart, soul, mind, temper, 
disposition, as will give to the dear babe yet to 
be, possibly a dozen years hence, a disposition 



y6 The Olive Branch. 

which will be helpful rather than one against 
which it will be compelled to wage war through 
its whole after life. Remember what the 
mother may be to her unborn child ; she may 
shape and sway by her thoughts and emotions 
to-day its whole life in all the years to come, 
not only for time, but possibly eternity. 

From the pen of a wife and mother we quote 
the following word-picture of a small segment 
of a woman's life. It bears on the matter of 
cultivating good qualities : 

" When you accidentally overturn your tidy 
work-basket, and spools roll hither and thither, 
buttons fly in every direction, skeins of silk and 
odds and ends of all kinds mix themselves in 
provoking confusion, check the impatient excla- 
mation — quick, or it will be too late. Turn your 
impatient thought into a merry song before it 
reaches the lip. Your basket will soon be set 
to rights, and you will have gained a little les- 
son of self-control. 

" Many of these little victories in the aggre- 
gate will add much to your worth as a woman ; 
your life will be polished by these frictions. 

" In future years, when you are called upon 
to undergo more than ordinary strain upon the 



The Babe. jj 

nerves, and when little ones are grouped about 
you with attentive ears to all that mamma 
says, it will be much easier to keep the home- 
life sweet. You can smile serenely when, in an 
unguarded moment, baby reaches out an am- 
bitious little hand and upsets your inkstand 
on the table-spread, and while you are throw- 
ing a handful of salt on it to absorb the pud- 
dle, following this treatment with a thorough 
washing in sweet milk, your bread is burning 
in the oven. Perhaps, as you recall the bread 
you had forgotten, and turn to open the oven- 
door, you encounter the steaming tea-kettle and 
suffer from an aggravating burn the rest of the 
day. 

"Just then the little four-year-old will be 
likely to come in from play with a great three- 
cornered rent in her new dress, which, having 
been caught on a nail in the fence, you will 
quietly say, like the brave, good little mother 
you intend to be, ' Never mind, dearie. 
Mamma will mend it as soon as baby is asleep, 
so you can go out again. But try and keep 
watch, next time, for the sharp nails which 
tear little girls' dresses.' Just then, upon glanc- 
ing at the clock, you will be astonished to find 



7& The Olive Branch. 

that you have but twenty minutes in which to 
prepare dinner. In the quickest possible man- 
ner you proceed with this, and in your haste 
to get the vegetables from the cellar you strike 
your head with fearful force against a project- 
ing beam. You must sit down now on the cel- 
lar steps to recover from the shock, and it will 
not be strange if the tears start as you clasp 
your hands across the aching head. But cour- 
age will be the word, and, though you may sit 
down to dinner so weary that you cannot en- 
joy the meal, yet your face will not wear a 
frown, nor your answers to the little question- 
ers around you be given in sharp, unkind 
tones. 

" Compare this day, when ' every thing 
seems to go wrong/ with the turning over of 
the work-basket in your girlhood, and the com- 
parison will be ludicrous ; and yet be assured 
if you do not cultivate the spirit of patience 
in the first instance it will be very much harder 
to begin when family cares come. 

" Do you call this an overdrawn picture of 
wedded life ? Ah no, it is only one of the 
slightly shaded places in the otherwise beauti- 
ful panorama. It is a day possible to come to 



The Babe. 79 

any one of you, no matter how auspicious the 
present may now be, and when your tender 
and sympathetic husband kisses the heated 
brow and whispers an encouraging word half 
the weariness will fly away, and you will think 
how rich you are in the possession of such a 
heart. But suppose it turns out that he is not 
considerate, as alas ! is many times the case, 
then is there far, far greater need of the same 
grace of patient self-control. " 

The woman who finds herself on the way 
toward that sublime pinnacle, maternity, should 
think of what she may be and do now for the 
being that begins within her own, and from 
her own life receives its precious life. Is it 
not a beautiful relation ? The food she daily 
takes into her system gives her blood a rich- 
ness that is specially provided for this new 
life she holds ; and so she begins to feed it in 
the very incipiency of its existence. Every 
hour, awake or asleep, she is giving it of her life 
and her strength. Tucked away within these 
finer than silken folds of nature the little being, 
which no eye but that of the All-wise can see, 
is amply protected from cold and heat, clothed, 
fed, sheltered. 



8o The Olive Branch. 

The mother's thought thrills it with sensa- 
tions of one kind or another. If she indulge 
wrong tempers of any sort the dear, helpless, 
recipient babe is influenced more or less in the 
same way. Does she allow herself to be pet- 
ulent, restless, the little one will share in the 
same condition to a greater or less extent. Is 
she frightened by some hideous sight, we know 
the liability of the unborn child to carry on its 
person through its whole after life some bodily 
" mark." What is true of the body is not less 
true of the soul, and many a hateful disposi- 
tion or soul-mark has come forth bearing 
these pre-natal derangements to disturb the 
harmonies of life. When such things may 
have their origin in the uncurbed disposition 
of the mother, indulged especially at a time 
when such results are possible, she should be 
thoughtful. It is best, therefore, to cultivate 
now the temper of soul which will save the 
future offspring from distress. Not this alone, 
but there should be the study of the bright, 
the hopeful, the beautiful, and the good. Pict- 
ures, flowers, music, cheerful surroundings, put 
upon the soul of the child their marks as surely 
as some other things mark the bodv. We do 



The Babe. 8i 

not believe in the creed of the materialists as 
a whole, but it does contain some elements of 
truth. One is that we are impressed by our en- 
vironments, we are liable to be shaped by certain 
outward conditions both before and afterbirth. 

Take our kindly advice, then, young lady, 
and not only begin the education of your child 
ten or a dozen years before it is born, but re- 
member that in doing so you will be educating 
children that may speak lovingly of you as great- 
great-grandmother a hundred years hence. 

An old prophet said many ages ago, "A 
little child shall lead them." How eminently 
true ! Is it not passing strange that people, 
and often the well-to-do, who cannot plead the 
want of ability to provide, should studiously 
seek in one way and another to deny them- 
selves such a boon as the gift of childhood ? 

We have heard some men, and women, too, 
cry out against children as if they were a curse 
instead of divine gift — a blessing. Not very 
long ago we read an advertisement in a city 
paper something like this : " Wanted, a suite 
of rooms by a man and his wife ; not over 
ten minutes' walk from the post-office ; no en- 
cumbrances ; address," etc. 



82 The Olive Branch. 

While we are writing on this wintry day 
there sits on the floor near our feet a little 
baby boy, a trifle less than a year old ; he is 
rollicking, laughing, full to running over with 
his childish glee, roguishly trying to divert our 
thoughts from this writing. We would not 
exchange him for the railway systems of the 
Vanderbilts and Goulds, with the rest of 
America thrown in. Think of calling him an 
" encumbrance !" Alas! for theheartlessnessof 
those who compare a dear child to some load 
which it is hard to carry — something in the way. 

There are two sides to this question of child- 
hood culture which many do not fully under- 
stand. While these several years of infantile 
pupilage are passing, often producing confu- 
sion in the home circle and causing many a 
night of broken rest, especially to the mother, 
yet through all this time the parent is receiv- 
ing some education from the dependent child. 
There is a heart development that is much 
needed to make life what it should be. To 
watch from day to day and from month to 
month the unfolding of the " bud of promise " 
is an inspiration to life itself; they give an 
added charm to life. What is a babe worth — 



The Babe. 83 

a babe, say, an hour old, to the world ? So 
much that to take its life would be murder, a 
crime punishable by death. We remember 
the account of a grand review of a corps of 
the Russian army by the Czar. Thousands were 
there to witness the scene, and in the rush and 
crash of the multitude a little child wan- 
dered away from its guardian and got within the 
lines in front of the coming troop of cavalry. 
To attempt its rescue seemed perilous ; but 
just then one of the troopers, seeing it, spurred 
his horse into a gallop, shot ahead of his com- 
rades, threw himself over the side of his steed, 
snatched the child from its peril — for it must 
have been in a moment more exposed to the 
iron hoofs of a thousand horses — and bore it 
away to a place of safety. He had disobeyed 
orders, had broken from the ranks — an unsol- 
dierly act — and had thus made himself liable 
to military discipline. But the Czar, hearing of 
it, sent for him, and instead of punishment con- 
ferred on him a knighthood. If the finest 
building in the city were on fire, and in an 
upper room there should be a sleeping child, and 
if only the babe or the house could be saved, the 
cry of every human heart would be, " Save the 



84 The Olive Branch. 

child, let the building, though it cost a round 
million dollars, go up in smoke and ashes." It 
is enough to say that the greatest man or 
woman whose presence ever graced the world's 
society, even the Lord Christ himself, was once 
a little helpless babe. What is a child worth? 
Only God can answer the question. And the 
frequent references made in the teachings of 
our Lord to children give strong evidence of 
the value he put upon them. Their purity, 
their helplessness, their promise, their loving 
natures, serve to lift men and women into the 
better life. " Except ye be converted, and be- 
come as little children, ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." 

" These are they that make poor men rich : 

4< I saw a tiny plant, in tender green, 
Grow, leaf by leaf, till robed in velvet sheen, 
From out its heart there burst a blossom fair, 
That shed its fragrance on the summer air. 

" I saw a child, that by its mother knelt 

And prayed, ' Our Father.' Then and there it felt 

The precious kindlings of a mighty love 

That drew its dawning infant thoughts above. 

" And one by one they went, the golden years ; 
The mother's spirit fled to radiant spheres ; 
But, with glad banner of the cross unfurled, 
Her child went forth a man to bless the world." 



THE RELIEF— ANESTHESIA. 



'* To this every woman is entitled, and for this she may, 
and of right ought to, hold her physician responsible ; she 
may with every propriety claim that if she be able to bear 
the perils of childbirth alone, in its fury, she is equally able 
to bear the effects of this light stage of anaesthesis. The time 
is past when her suffering may be ignored by the learned 
physician, and every woman should perfectly understand 
that the old-fashioned assurances, * Your pains are natural ! 
you will not die! this is God's order for you ! ' are simply and 
absurdly cruel, and should not be submitted to. If God 
allowed the pains, God sent the anaesthetic." — Dr. D, M. 
Barr. 



The Relief — Anesthesia. 87 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE RELIEF— ANESTHESIA. 

[The matter of this chapter and the two immediately fol- 
lowing it is from the pen of David Miller Ban*, M.D., for 
many years a successful practitioner in the city of Philadel- 
phia. It originally formed a paper which was read before the 
Obstetrical Society of that city, and was afterward printed in 
the Medical and Surgical Reporter: We have thrown it into 
this form in The Olive Branch by permission of the author. 
Dr. Barr is also the inventor of the inhaler described in Chap- 
ter VIII, which is surpassed by no other instrument of its 
class, and we think is superior to any other in use.] 

I COME, wrote Dr. Barr, to plead for " anaes- 
thesia in labor." Not only in troublesome 
instrumental labor, but in all cases where the 
pains of travail fall upon women. 
I offer the following propositions : 
1st. Anaesthetics are not used in a fair pro- 
portion, in the pains of labor, to their use in 
ordinary surgical operations. 

2d. A proper anaesthesia is as directly indi- 
cated, and is more safe in its use, to the ob- 
stetric patient than to the surgical patient, case 
for case. 



88 The Olive Branch. 

In addition to the arguments in support of 
the foregoing, I will consider the questions : 
1st. What is the danger to the child? 2d. 
What anaesthetic should be used ? 3d. What 
effects may be expected ? 

(a) Upon the general system of the mother, 
with cases illustrating. 

(J?) Upon the parts involved in parturition. 

In considering the first proposition I am 
willing to acknowledge the terrible nature of 
all induced pain ; having myself suffered with- 
out chloroform I know how to appreciate it. 
The knife cutting into the quivering flesh in- 
volves all that is terrible, in anticipation as 
well as in realization, against which nature 
shrinks, demanding anaesthesia. So also in the 
presence of suffering from any character of 
operation, such is the terror inspired that an 
anaesthetic is invoked, often upon the most 
trivial occasion, from the pulling of a tooth to 
the capital operation. 

But granting the horrible nature of induced 
pain, it is of but brief duration ; from five 
minutes to two hours will measure the period 
of almost every case in which anaesthesia is 
demanded, the great majority requiring the 



y 



The Relief — Anaesthesia. 89 

minimum of time as well as involving the min- 
imum of suffering. 

In labor cases, on the contrary, pain con- 
tinues, with intermissions which seem only to 
aggravate the coming pain, from two hours, as 
a minimum, to ten to fifty long, weary hours — 
a character of pain which Professor Meigs 
well says has no other name but agony — and 
this pain accompanied with suffering which 
beggars description. In the midst of fasting 
and sickness the body must labor ; weakness 
and exhaustion plead in vain for rest ; with 
every muscle of the body exercised to its ut- 
most tension, in mortal terror for very life, as 
in a tread-mill, it must labor. On and on, 
again and again, as the resistless flowing tide, 
comes the pain. Such is the terror of this 
scene that the prophet of old seizes it, there 
being none greater, to describe a fearful calam- 
ity. " For I have heard a voice as of a woman 
in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth 
forth her first child, the voice of the daughter 
of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth 
her hands, saying, Woe is me now ! for my 
soul is wearied because of murderers." (Jer. 
iv, 31.) 



90 The Olive Branch. 

This is a labor scene the truth of which we 
all know. Who among us has not heard from 
suffering woman the despairing cry of Saul, 
" Slay me, for anguish is come upon me;" 
or the more familiar, " I shall die, I shall die, 
and not live.'' And yet, while our hearts 
have been moved with pity and sympathy, 
how many of us have failed to give her the 
comfort of anaesthesia, this greatest gift of 
God, so especially adapted to her need, this 
power of God, which alone is able to say to 
this troubled sea of agony, " Peace, be still ! " 
I ask, gentlemen, is it fair, if anaesthetics be 
safe in labor, that they be denied here and 
offered for the pulling of a tooth ? 

But the saddest side of this scene is yet to 
be considered. Upon whom does this sad 
visitation fall? Is it upon the stalwart man, 
whose heart and nerve and muscle and nat- 
ure are strong to endure this terrible ordeal, 
who in long years of exposure and training 
has learned to labor and to suffer? I say, is it 
the strong and stalwart of our race who are 
thus called upon to suffer ? O, no ! Not so. 
If they must suffer, they must have gas. If 
a leech is to be placed, they cry, " Couldn't I 



The Relief — Anesthesia. 91 

have a little ether?" If it were they, indeed, 
there were no need for this paper; public 
opinion, so potent in making presidents and in 
moving our thoughtful (?) legislators, would 
long ago have moved the profession to see the 
propriety of " anaesthesia in labor." On the 
contrary, it is the weak, delicate woman ; the 
daughter ; perhaps, a young creature, whom a 
kind providence has shielded from sun and 
wind, whose delicate fingers have been taught 
to lift the music zephyrs from their hiding- 
places — nothing weightier; whose sweet, peace- 
ful life has never known a thought of pain or 
care. It is this gentle creature, so brave and 
true that she enters willingly this dread scene 
of suffering, counting her life not dear for those 
she loves. She takes the hand of her phy- 
sician ; she believes that she is forewarned ; 
she believes that she is prepared to bear ; but 
is she? Not so. Language never yet has 
framed the words which could tell the tale. 
She is prepared to meet death, if need be ; 
but, suffering more than death, she cannot die. 
How often have you and I heard her call for 
death, pray for death, as the terrible reality 
forced itself upon her astonished consciousness ! 



92 The Olive Branch. 

She is told it is all natural ! God has so or- 
dained it ! She can bear it ! All women bear 
it ! And so, in her pain and in her exhaustion, 
as a lamb upon which the dogs are set, she 
suffers her time. Who says this is right? 
What father will condemn his child to this ? 
What husband will stand by and see this, 
when the facts stand patent before us that, 
w r ith added safety to mother and child, by the 
scientific use of the means which the God of 
nature has placed in our hands, she may be led 
through this terrible ordeal as though but 
bathed in the waters of the " river of Lethe ; M 
and though all these pains must be submitted 
to, and all this suffering endured, the conscious- 
ness may the while be solaced by sweet sleep 
and the visions of dreamland take the place 
of stern reality ? 

And now how stands the account between 
the pains of labor and the induced pains of 
art ? But this is not all. We have but studied 
the scene of a natural labor. Now, let trouble 
come, and the aid of art be invoked, with all 
the long list of procedures needful to save life. 
How shall the woman endure the scene? The 
forceps, which her imagination has pictured as 



The Relief — Anaesthesia. 93 

a far-off horror, now loom into life ; a strong 
man adds all the power of his might to the 
forces already grinding her to pieces ; and the 
more terrible instruments which shall muti- 
late her child, that only source of joy which 
can, for a moment, cause her to forget her an- 
guish. Consider the agony of mind and heart, 
and compare it with the pains and pangs and 
fears of the most terrible of operations, and 
how stands the account ? But stop ; consider ; 
of all the people who inhabit this earth per- 
haps not one in a thousand has ever known 
a pain requiring anaesthesia ; and yet of all 
creatures born, whether living or dead, whether 
mature or immature, I may almost say none, 
not one, has come forth from a living mother 
but that, more or less, it was shrouded with 
pain which might have been relieved. Bal- 
ance now the account, and will not every heart 
join with me in the conclusion : Let anaesthetics 
be administered in labor cases, and their benefit 
compared with their help in all other pains, and 
the balance in favor of pain and suffering 
soothed shall be, without measure, in favor of 
anaesthesia in labor. 

In considering the second proposition w r e 



94 The Olive Branch. 

have to compare the general condition of the 
parturient woman with the general condition 
of the surgical patient, and study the effect of 
the anaesthetics upon each. 

Contrasting these conditions, we have — 
i. The surgical patient approaches the 
operating table in varying stages of disease, 
whereas the obstetric patient approaches her 
labor in varying stages of health. Second, 
the surgical patient expects to wake from his 
sleep with a mutilated body, perhaps with loss 
of members, or at least a lingering suffering. 
To wake, for him, is, at best, to weep. She, 
on the contrary, looks upon this sleep as the 
heaven-sent haven of rest. On the borders of 
this sleep she lays her burden down — she 
wakes to receive her reward ; she seeks this 
sleep a suffering woman in travail ; she hastens 
to awake a happy mother, reaping the fruits 
of her suffering and patience during the long 
past months in the fullness of joy, such as a 
mother only can know. To wake, for her, is to 
welcome her harvest home. 

2. They come subject to the shock of sudden 
accident, or worn by lingering disease ; the nerv- 
ous system all unstrung. She is in the height 



The Relief — Anaesthesia. 95 

of highest vitality ; for never is a woman's 
life more perfect than now ; her nerves and 
muscles all braced for the contest for which 
nature, foreseeing, has been preparing ; not that 
she is thus strong enough to fight her battle 
alone, but that she is the best that she can be. 

3. If they have a tendency to anaemia of the 
brain, it is greatest now, and chloroform will 
but intensify the risk. If she have a tendency 
to anaemia of the brain, it is least now ; her 
blood being rich as possible for her, and surg- 
ing through her brain never so high. 

4. If they have valvular disease of the heart, 
requiring highest vitality of system to keep in 
regular action, how is this vigor lessened now, 
how great is the tendency of chloroform still 
further to increase the demand. Whereas 
when she comes into labor with valvular dis- 
ease, instead of previous exhaustion and de- 
bility, her heart is stimulated by her condition, 
excited by her surrounding circumstances, by 
every act of preparation, by very hope. Urged 
to its utmost power by constantly recurring 
pain, by the violent muscular effort, its danger 
is from overaction, from overexertion, lest its 
walls or its valves give way. How appropri- 



g6 The Olive Branch. 

ately here comes in the soothing, sedative in- 
fluence of the anaesthetic, quieting the excite- 
ment, subduing the pain, lulling into gentle 
slumber ; the scene of labor is gone ; the woman 
bides her time in happy unconsciousness ; the 
heart resumes a normal pulsation, safe under 
proper care. Even in the uraemic poisonings, 
with the threatened convulsion, that nightmare 
of the obstetric condition, let the onset be 
anticipated, let the nervous irritability be lost 
in gentle slumber, and the time for spasm may 
pass unheeded, the signal may never be given. 

I appeal to the experience of the profession : 
does any one know of an instance in which a 
patient has passed from a state of proper an- 
aesthesis into convulsion ? For myself, I never 
saw it ; on the contrary, I have seen the threat- 
ened spasm abort and never return. 

It is the habit of the profession, after the 
onset of convulsion, to fly to chloroform and 
the lancet ; why should not the earlier use of 
the former do away with the demand for the 
latter? 

We may deduce from the foregoing that in 
ordinary surgical operations the death ten- 
dencies are from shock, from anaemia of the 



The Relief — Anesthesia. 97 

brain, and from general and special debility, 
while we know that the death tendencies of 
chloroform are exactly upon these same lines. 
On the contrary, the death tendencies of the 
parturient condition are from overexertion or 
consequent reaction, from plethora, from con- 
gestion of the brain, from convulsion — the 
tendencies of chloroform being all antagonized 
to these same ; and as two waves meeting pro- 
duce a calm, as oil upon troubled waters gives 
peace, so is it with anaesthesia in labor. Nor 
is this all ; while the pains, per se, in each case 
may be equally unbearable, and equally require 
anaesthesia, the cause and condition of the 
pain vary absolutely. In the surgical opera- 
tion we have the flesh incised, the nerves 
divided ; it is a concentrated, localized pain of 
great intensity. To subdue the knowledge of 
this pain requires absolute snoring anaesthesis. 
On the contrary, in labor there is no sudden 
division of the continuity of any tissue. This 
is the pain of "horrible cramp. It is the pain 
of the muscular contraction, the resistance of 
muscular tissue against inordinate distention. 
It is the torture of the rack; and such is its 
fearful power, that in the tearing asunder of the 



98 The Olive Branch. 

distended parts, as of the perineum, the very 
laceration brings relief, as though the gates of 
Paradise had opened to give the weary one 
rest. And yet under a very light anaesthetic 
effect, long before the snoring sleep announces 
profound anaesthesis, the muscles relax, resist- 
ance ceases, the parts distend to their utmost 
capacity, while the consciousness is lost in a 
dream. It will be remembered by all who ad- 
minister anaesthetics that the test as to con- 
dition for operation is not that the muscles be 
perfectly relaxed, not that the eyelid may be 
stretched without making resistance, but that 
the delicate and sensitive cornea may be 
touched with the rough finger end without 
causing a sensation. Such a condition should 
be unknown in the obstetric chamber. 

And further still, as a measure of safety in fa- 
vor of the obstetric use, let it be remembered 
the ordinary surgical patient, under this pro- 
found anaesthesis, is always bordering on the 
verge of death ; he has within himself nothing 
but his own weakened life-force to support 
him ; sinking must be met by flagellations, by 
shock from the battery, by ammonia, by in- 
verting the body that blood may gravitate to 



The Relief— Anaesthesia. 99 

the brain ; whereas in the parturient patient 
we have all these substitutes within the citadel, 
the natural forces, then in fullest exercise, act- 
ing as a guard against possible accident. The 
constantly recurring pain serves for the battery, 
the ammonia, the flagellation, while the muscu- 
lar exertion, compressing the lungs, forcing the 
blood into the brain and holding it there with 
vigorous effort during the pain, answers in ad- 
vance for the tilting of the body, so often 
tardy, in all cases where the anaesthetic is ad- 
ministered with only an approach to proper 
care. 

Certain it is that any woman may be chloro- 
formed to death, as she may be smothered to 
death by placing a pillow over her mouth and 
holding it there ; but I am thoroughly con- 
vinced, and I trust I have shown some good 
reasons for believing, that far beyond the 
average of ordinary surgical cases in which 
they are usually administered the necessary 
and proper anaesthetic effect is safe in labor 
cases. But the question as to the safety of 
anaesthesia in labor involves, besides the fore- 
going, the question as to its effect upon the 
child. If its delicate life be endangered, then 



ioo The Olive Branch. 

falls the entire argument ; but, I have no 
hesitation in asserting the contrary, for the fol- 
lowing reasons : 

It stands upon record that in one case, be- 
fore instruments were applied, a woman had 
inhaled three pints of chloroform, and as a con- 
sequence, not only was the babe still-born, but 
it was so saturated with chloroform that its 
body was preserved in color, form, and feature 
during three days, in hot weather, without 
ice. I mention this case simply to show 
that a woman in the obstetric condition 
could scarcely be chloroformed to death. If 
the mother's blood may be so saturated with 
chloroform that after passing through the pla- 
cental vessels it shall retain sufficient chloro- 
form so to inject the tissues of the child, and 
yet the mother live, all argument against its 
safety to the mother must fall. I only men- 
tion this to condemn. I look upon such a 
practice simply as an experiment as to how 
much chloroform would be required to kill a 
child and save ice to its burial ! expecting the 
mother's death as a matter of course. Pure 
chloroform is always dangerous ; three pints at 
one labor must be deadly. I think the profes- 



The Relief — An/Esthesia. ioi 

sion will bear me out in the assertion — the 
babe will be influenced only in a small propor- 
tion to the anaesthetic effect upon the mother. 

If I may offer my own experience during 
the last twenty years of almost constant using 
in my labor cases I will say I never saw a babe 
exhibit any marked influence of the anaes- 
thetic, nor have I ever heard an intimation to 
the contrary by any one present at the birth, 
although, as a rule, I. always call the attention 
of the friends to the condition of the babe im- 
mediately upon its birth, for my own protec- 
tion against gossiping report. If a mother be 
smothered to death, I am ready to admit that 
the babe would suffer ; but such is not good 
practice. 

Let us consider the other side: How much 
chloroform can a babe bear ? We have num- 
berless instances of young babies inhaling 
chloroform. This is acknowledged to be the 
anaesthetic for babes, and reaction is prompt 
after having been kept hours under its influ- 
ence. Among others, Professor Simpson men- 
tions a case in which a babe not one month 
old w T as kept continuously under the influence 
of chloroform during twenty-four hours, with 



102 The Olive Branch. 

no bad symptoms and absolute control of con- 
vulsions, which had resisted all other means. 
In 1866 I administered to a patient of mine, 
only ten days old, for an operation by the late 
Dr. F. F. Maury, without trouble, and prompt 
recovery. And in 1870 I administered to my 
own child, a babe of two days old, pure chloro- 
form to perfect anaesthesis, unbroken for forty- 
eight hours, except to feed with a spoon what 
nourishment could be drawn from the mothers 
breast. My nurse sat for thirty-six hours with- 
out moving from the chair, or, I believe, her 
eyes from the face of the child which lay upon 
her lap. The trouble was a horrible convulsion, 
resisting all efforts to soothe and relieve. Babe 
was threatened with immediate death ; choloro- 
form was resorted to as a forlorn hope. Dur- 
ing this entire period any attempt to allow an 
approach to consciousness was followed by a 
renewed onset of convulsion. Recovery fol- 
lowed without an untoward symptom ; and I 
offer as my answer to this query, a babe in 
utero can bear all the influence of chloroform 
which a mother can impart, herself not being 
in unwarrantable jeopardy. And I will say 
further, if a mother can, to a limited extent, 



The Relief— Anaesthesia. 103 

impart the anaesthetic effect to her child, in 
mercy's name let it be so, and let the child be 
spared the pain which, unless anaesthetized by 
the hand of God, it must suffer in coming into 
this world. 



THE KIND USED. 

8 



11 Si quid novisti rectius istis 

Candidus imperti ; si non his utere mecum." — Horace. 

"And if a better system's thine 
Impart it frankly, or make use of mine." 

" The errors that we commit on one day should teach us 
to conduct ourselves more wisely on those which follow." — 
Old Maxim. 



The Kind Used. 107 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE KIND USED. 

IT has been my custom for a number of 
years past to use a combination of chloro- 
form, ether, and alcohol. The peculiarities of 
chloroform are : 1. It has the power to subdue 
pain by its effect upon the nervous system, in- 
dependently of its influence upon the blood, 
acting as a narcotic. 2. It is by far the most 
prompt and powerful in its effect. 3. It is the 
most dangerous after a slight stimulation, often 
wanting, and a slight nausea, very often absent. 
The tendency to paralyze the nervous system 
at once is manifest. First the sensory, then the 
motor nerves, then the functions of life suc- 
cumb ; with it immunity from pain precedes the 
stertorous sleep; a tendency to. induce anaemia 
of the brain distinguishes it from ether or alco- 
hol, as well as the fact, well established, that it 
may, without warning, paralyze and arrest the 
action of heart and lungs. With it the stage of 
inebriation is slight or wanting. In ether we 



108 The Olive Branch. 

have almost the opposite of chloroform. In its 
approach to anaesthesis we have, first, a long 
stage of inebriation, with nausea and vomiting, 
and with excited spasmodic — I should say 
drunken — efforts, often requiring strong hands 
to restrain ; second, perfect immunity from 
pain, with ether, exists only in the stertorous 
sleep, often only after a long and tedious ad- 
ministration ; third, the heart and lungs are 
stimulated, the brain and general system con- 
gested ; the anaesthetic influence is induced 
only through the blood, and in the following 
stages: I. Inebriation; 2. Stupor; 3. Muscu- 
lar relaxation ; 4. Stertor ; and 5. Coma, if 
pushed too far. 

In alcohol we have only two stages, intoxi- 
cation and reaction — the drunkard's sleep. 
Now, what are the indications of the obstetric 
condition ? First, we have a sudden onsetting 
pain of great violence ; accompanied with this 
pain we have a muscular effort involving all 
the muscles of the body, a straining effort 
threatening injury to the valves of a diseased 
heart, or the rupture of the vessels of a deli- 
cate lung ; we have this effort forcing blood 
into the brain and holding it there, maintain- 



The Kind Used. 109 

ing a temporary mechanical congestion of the 
brain ; we may, at the same time, have rigid 
spasms of the os uteri or perineum, cramps of 
the voluntary muscles, or general convulsions. 
Now, how shall these indications be met ? 
Without controversy, chloroform stands forth 
as the remedy, its very points of danger being 
antagonized, to a certain extent, by the ob- 
stetric conditions. Does chloroform promptly 
subdue pain ? Here is a sudden onsetting 
pain! Does it induce anaemia of the brain? 
Here is an abnormally, though mechanically, 
congested brain. Does it relieve muscular ten- 
sion and spasm and cramp and convulsion ? 
Here are muscular spasm and tension per- 
fected, with the most terrible of cramps, and 
convulsion always possible. Does it tend to 
depress the action of heart and lung ? Here is 
the action of heart and lung stimulated to 
highest effort by pain, by excitement, by mus- 
cular exertion, by nervous irritability. But 
you say it is dangerous. And I say it is dan- 
gerous. Its effects may be in excess of the 
demand. It may paralyze and arrest the labor. 
In the absence of pain we want no chloroform ; 
how shall we obtain its benefit without its 



no The Olive Branch. 

risk ? Now comes ether ; evaporating three 
times more rapidly than chloroform, it brings 
its first stimulating effect to antagonize the 
ever-possible depressing or enervating effect of 
chloroform without in the least retarding the 
anaesthesia, and its own anaesthetic effect is 
developed after the force of the chloroform is 
spent. Its own stage of excitement and nausea 
is lost in the early anaesthesis of its rival, and 
its dangerous sequences forestalled ; thus we 
have, if properly combined, a perfect anaes- 
thetic against a labor pain. But in the 
absence of pain we need no anaesthetic, and 
should allow only the lightest possible in- 
fluence ; indeed, a pure stimulant is to be 
desired. Now comes alcohol (in vapor) ; less 
volatile than its fellow T s, if administered with 
them it must mainly act after they are gone. 
Mixing freely with them, it serves to dilute 
and make more manageable these powerful 
agents. 

I am accustomed to use the following com- 
bination, the proportions graded according to 
the relative strength and nature of the ingre- 
dients and the demands of the case, increasing 
or lessening either ingredient if the peculiari- 



The Kind Used. hi 

ties of any case seem to indicate it, which I 
find very rare. Combine — 

3 Ether 3 parts, 

Chloroform 1 part, 

Alcohol 2 parts, 

and we have an anaesthetic admirably calculated 
to meet the obstetric condition. Of this mixt- 
ure three drams is a quantity easily han- 
dled. It may be sprinkled at one time on the 
inhaler, and just as the patient exclaims, 
" Quick, quick, doctor, here comes a pain," let 
the inhaler be placed near the mouth, but not 
against it, so as to at all exclude the air ; after 
two or three rapid inhalations the pain may 
play itself; our patient is in comfort. The 
rapidly evaporating ether and chloroform, an- 
tagonized upon the dangerous or troublesome 
points, and at one as to the anaesthesis, have 
done their work, and are away almost as soon 
as the pain, leaving the slower alcohol to fos- 
ter the influence and to guard against injury, 
as a watchman to lock up after the firm has 
departed. This effect may be thus intermitted 
or made continuous, may be lightened or deep- 
ened, as indicated. 

I have thus far considered anaesthesia in its 



ii2 The Olive Branch. 

brute force, as demanded in ordinary opera- 
tions; but there is another stage of anaesthesis 
peculiarly adapted to labor cases, in which the 
lion becomes a lamb. Writers have spoken 
about a stage of anaesthesis, most desirable 
and safe, in which pain is absent and yet con- 
sciousness is not lost, as a condition perfectly 
adapted to minor operations in surgery, very 
difficult to obtain as well as maintain. But to 
most surgeons this stage is a " myth,'* a " will- 
o'-the-wisp." So far as I have used anaesthetics 
in ordinary surgery, or seen them used by 
other surgeons, there are but two stages of 
anaesthesis, one of inebriation and one of pro- 
found sleep, ready for the operation ; but in 
the anaesthesis of labor cases this rare and 
beautiful condition referred to not only may 
be, but should always be looked for. Profound 
anaesthesis is seldom required, even to subdue 
the worst pains of labor, and in the absence of 
pain but the slightest effect is required to con- 
tinue the dreamy sleep, in which the patient 
follows in her imagination the direction of the 
physician ; her brain crystallizes every idea 
into a scene of reality, and thus, in vision clear 
and vivid, she visits the scenes of her child- 



The Kind Used. 113 

hood and lives again the delights of a long 
ago, or sings and revels in the pleasures of to- 
day, all unconscious of the pain which will at 
regular intervals break in as a cloud, perhaps 
changing her tone, arresting her voice, may be 
forcing a long, low moan or a complaint, and 
then the face is lit again with smiles, the song 
finished or the journey renewed, all uncon- 
scious of the interruption, and she wakes when 
all is over, remembering every scene of her 
dream-life as a vivid reality and the pains of 
her labor, if at all, only as a dream. 

She has fulfilled the prophecy which stands 
to-day, though written centuries ago : " Before 
she travailed, she brought forth; before her 
pain came, she was delivered of a man child. " 

THE INHALER. 

The best mode of administering anaesthesia 
is an important consideration. While an in- 
haler may be extemporized from a napkin or 
any thing else that may be at hand, I have 
found the following apparatus, devised by my- 
self, to be the most convenient : 

The instrument in its foundation consists of 
a hollow tube and a wire frame-work, forming 



ii4 The Olive Branch. 

a hollow cone, similar to the shape of the nap- 
kin and paper cone referred to, which opens 
and closes like an inverted umbrella. It is 
really a cone within a cone, the apices con- 
nected by the tube, the smaller some six 
inches below the larger, the circumference of 
each base uniting. The larger cone, or outer, 
is covered with gum-cloth ; the smaller, or 
inner, consists of Canton flannel, furred side 
out, forming a hollow base to the larger, and 
between the two cones is an air-chamber. The 
hollow tube, as it passes through to this cham- 
ber, is perforated, and above the outer cone it 
spreads out in the form of a funnel. Now, 
into this funnel is poured the anaesthetic ; 
through the small perforations it is sprinkled 
upon the Canton flannel and is evaporated into 
the air-chamber above, or between the cones, 
perfectly saturating the air ; and when the 
united base of the two cones, about six inches 
long and four wide, is placed so as to cover 
the patient's nose and mouth, we see, first, all 
inspiration must be through the tube, and all 
expiration must be through the same, except 
that which may be passed beside the chinks, 
to draw through being more easy than to blow 



The Kind Used. 115 

through against thewooled side of the Canton 
flannel. Hence, while inhalation is entirely 
through the tube and saturated air-chamber, 
the air brought into the lungs must necessarily 
be saturated with the anaesthetic ; yet the air 
returned from the lungs may be passed out 
without blowing the anaesthetic into the room. 
We have no loss of anaesthetic ; thus it is 
economical. 

Second. The Canton flannel cone, or base, 
as it may be termed, of the larger cone, may 
be removed at pleasure, in a moment, and an- 
other substituted, without the least inconven- 
ience, if soiled, while the fact of its being in 
the form of a cone and entirely elevated from 
the nose lessens the probability of its being 
soiled. Thus it is cleanly, while it offers the 
additional advantage, in being elevated, of 
holding the liquid mixture sprinkled upon it 
far away from the face, even while perfectly 
excluding the outside air, sparing the patient 
the burning of the face so often seen. 

Third. The funnel-shaped end of the tube 
projecting above the outer cone serves as a 
handle, or the instrument may be held by the 
wires of its frame-work by the obstetric patient, 



u6 The Olive Branch. 

inhaling at her pleasure, as I usually allow. It 
is light, weighing only about from three to five 
ounces when ready for inhaling. It is small, 
less than twelve inches long, and when closed 
is as a child's closed parasol of that length, 
without a handle, and may be placed in the 
coat pocket. Thus it is convenient. 



THE HAPPY RESULTS IN PRACTICE. 



" Much practice hath a sure improvement found." — Dry den. 
" Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — Paul. 

11 Standing on what too long we bore, 
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, 

We may discern — unseen before — 

A path to higher destinies." — Longfellow. 



The Happy Results in Practice. 119 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HAPPY RESULTS IN PRACTICE. 

IN illustration of this beautiful effect I will 
select some examples, which I trust will be 
of interest to the reader, and which, with one or 
two exceptions, are residents of Philadelphia. 

Mrs. F., 1871. Taken in labor two weeks 
prematurely in consequence of alarm at the 
sudden death of an aunt ; was so very nervous 
that I feared for her safety; she had settled in 
her mind that she would certainly die in this 
her second confinement. Immediately after 
the first few inhalations she became tranquil, 
no sickness, no suffering ; she lay upon her 
bed as though simply resting ; no one in the 
room except myself supposed she was uncon- 
scious of her pain, which regularly recurred, 
and was regularly responded to by the strain- 
ing effort, dozing slightly in the interval of 
pain ; she replied to every question intelligi- 
bly, and appeared in perfect comfort. Labor 
completed itself naturally; anaesthesia was 



120 The Olive Branch. 

continued slightly until the close of the third 
stage, on account of her nervousness, and con- 
trary to my custom. After bandaging, I said 
aloud : " Mrs. F., your babe is born ; " she re- 
plied, in perfect wakefulness, " My babe isn't 
born ; how could my babe be born and I have 
no pain?" and then, remembering her fears, 
she exclaimed, " How could my babe be born 
and I not die?" She was soon convinced, 
and rejoiced in her happy relief. 

Without material difference in the scenes 
of labor was Mrs. M., 1876. When I said, 
" Madam, your babe is born," she replied, 
" Now, doctor, you're fooling me." " No, 
madam, there's your babe at the foot of the 
bed, covered up." Touching it with her foot, 
she exclaimed, " Pshaw ! that's Julia." 

Also, Mrs. F., 1879, hearing her babe cry, 
she exclaimed, petulantly, " Now, Viola, you 
always wake me just as I get into a nice sleep." 

Also Mrs. R., September, 1872. Tedious 
first labor ; mother weeping all night over the 
apparent sufferings of her child. " Mrs. R., 
your babe is born." She replied, promptly, 
" Is my babe born ? Well, mother, I never 
felt one pain." 



The Happy Results in Practice. 121 

In all these cases labor progressed and ter- 
minated naturally; no vomiting, no drunken- 
ness, no cessation of pains, no stertorous 
sleep, no instrumental interference, no hemor- 
rhage ; indeed, nothing but the regular inhala- 
tions, the regular pains, the natural delivery, 
and the perfect, prompt waking. 

Mrs. L., 1873, by advice of husband and 
friends, refused the anaesthetic. I sat by her 
bedside, offering her what comfort I could, while 
she labored as hard as I ever saw any one labor, 
from nine o'clock P. M. until three o'clock 
A. M., when she became perfectly exhausted. 
I said : " Now, Mrs. L., you are very foolish to 
suffer so when I have perfect comfort for you in 
my vest pocket. " " Well, doctor, if you're sure 
it wont hurt me I'll take it." Within five min- 
utes she was at peace ; no more pulling, no 
more tread-mill arrangements, no more suffer- 
ing. Labor advanced rapidly ; in an hour her 
babe was born, and she rejoicing. Three 
children have since been born to her, all in 
dream-land. These cases represent the ordi- 
nary effect of the anaesthetic. But there is a 
much finer effect possible with the very dry 
ether and chloroform of Squibb's manufacture, 



122 The Olive Branch. 

and I believe only with his can it be perfectly 
maintained. The condition requires careful 
administration of the anaesthetic, but will well 
reward the effort. As examples, I mention 
Mrs. B., 1872. First labor. Early upon its 
onset I administered the anaesthetic. Then I 
invited her to visit her old home. I described 
the scenes ; she conversed freely, with appar- 
ently perfect confidence, interrupted only with 
each pain and her straining effort. When all 
was over she told, with great delight, of 
her visit home, describing the scenes upon 
which we had conversed ; she had been with 
the doctor to the garden to pluck roses ; she 
saw the old willow-tree at home, waving and 
waving, and that's the last ; her babe was born 
entirely without a sense of pain or knowledge 
of the birth. 

Mrs. C, 1874, almost immediately after the 
first inhalation, burst out into a beautiful song, 
and continued singing one after another until 
her babe, a large boy, first child, was born. 
Her singing was only interrupted by the on- 
set of each pain, when she would descend 
rapidly from her high, clear soprano, to a low, 
moaning sound, until the pain had passed, 



The Happy Results in Practice. 123 

when at once she is off again into an airy glee, 
all unconscious of the pain. This scene was 
repeated some two years later, upon the birth 
of a pair of fine boys. 

Also of this character was Mrs. H., 1872, 
who spent the time singing and conversing, 
utterly unconscious of pain ; her first child. 
So delightful was the scene that her sister-in- 
law, who resided in Baltimore, determined to 
come to Philadelphia for care in her approach- 
ing confinement. She came, but circumstances 
prevented my being present ; and, to her great 
disgust, she was obliged to suffer all night under 
care of a physician who thought the " pains 
all natural," and that a woman " ought to bear 
them." Her next child was born under my 
care, in dream-land. 

I will conclude these cases by the relation 
of some instances in which almost the entire 
brain was perfectly awake, so as not only to 
answer my questions, but to propound others ; 
so as not only to grasp my imaginings, but to 
suggest other new ideas, and by word and 
gesture illustrate them, indicating by smile and 
play of features a perfect conception of the 
ideal, yet utterly unconscious of the real. I 



124 The Olive Branch. 

attended Mrs. M., the wife of a prominent 
minister in Philadelphia, in six labors ; with 
five I had the ordinary effects of the mixture, 
as detailed. How well I remember my first 
attendance, her second child, when I said, 
" Mrs. M., your babe is born," her delighted 
cry, "O doctor, bless you for giving me that !" 
In her last I determined to give her all the 
pleasure I could, and with Squibb's prepara- 
tions I administered carefully. Soon she awoke 
in dream-land. I invited her to go with me to 
a Sunday-school anniversary ; she consented, 
with pleasure. We went, I described the 
scenes, she enjoyed it perfectly, interested her- 
self in the speaking, and joined in singing one 
tune after another as I suggested them. No- 
ticing her look intently, I asked her why. 
She replied, " I can't see them exactly." 
" Why, don't you see that little girl with 
blue eyes and black curly hair? Don't you 
see her white dress? " " O, yes," she replied, 
smiling, " now I see them," and her babe is 
born. 

The other case went to bed at ten o'clock 
P. M., second confinement, 1877 ; had been hav- 
ing pain for some time before my arrival ; she 



The Happy Results in Practice. 125 

was delivered at six o'clock A. M. During this 
entire interval she spoke as though perfectly 
awake. I invited her to take a ride in the park. 
She said, " Thank you, doctor; I would like 
to. John, bring the horses." " Here they are, 
Mrs. C. ; aren't they beautiful ? See that gray, 
how proud he looks, and that bay, how high 
he holds his head ! " " They are beautiful." 
" Step in, Mrs. C." " Thank you, doctor," and 
with a movement she is in, and we are off. I 
described the scenes as we passed, and she cer- 
tainly saw them all. Upon entering the park a 
beautiful " team " attempted to pass us, and we 
drive all regardless of park regulations ; we keep 
ahead, of course, much to her delight. We drive 
by the river, and see a boat-race ; boys in red, 
boys in blue ; and we are off to the " Wissa- 
hickon." A cat-fish supper is ordered for two. 
" Mrs. C, will you take a boat-ride while supper 
is preparing ? " " Thank you, doctor.' ' " Here 
is the boat, Mrs. C, step in." " Isn't it dan- 
gerous, doctor? " " O, no ; see, the man will row 
us," and with a motion she is in, and we boat 
along, delighted. I remarked how beautifully 
the branches interlace above us from the trees 
on either side ; she replied, " And how sweet 



126 The Olive Branch. 

they look reflected from the water." Soon, 
with a waving motion of the hand, she said, 
" How nice to bathe the hand in the water as 
we float along." " Mrs. C, I hear the bell, 
supper must be ready, let us go in." She as- 
sents, and we return to find the supper nicely 
laid, and we proceed to discuss the dainties. 
Mrs. C. was helped to cat-fish, to waffles, to 
chicken, and the et ceteras. " Mrs. C, wouldn't 
you be helped to something more ? M " No, 
thank you, doctor; I have eaten heartily." 
" Try some of this honey, it is very nice with 
waffles." " Well, thank you, doctor ; I will try 
a little." " Can I help you to anything else ?" 
" No, indeed, not any thing more." " Shall 
we drive home?" "I am ready." And we 
drive home in time to meet the babe, where- 
upon Mrs. C. is immediately awake to real 
life, and cannot be convinced that her trip is 
not real. To-day she assures me that but for 
the fact of the impossibility, she could not be 
convinced that she had not taken that ride, so 
real it seems to her. 

A lady, after the birth of a child, assured me, 
" Doctor, I never felt a pain, but I knew 
what you were doing all the time, and all that 



The Happy Results in Practice. 127 

was going on around me; I fought against the 
influence, for fear you would use instruments." 
The other was the most perfect effect of anaes- 
thesia I ever saw. Previous to her confine- 
ment, upon making my engagement, I ex- 
plained the effect I expected ; both herself 
and mother-in-law were much surprised, hav- 
ing never heard of it. They told some neigh- 
bors, who laughed at " such an idea; " " either 
the pains would go on or the labor would 
stop." u Well," said the mother-in-law, " in a 
few weeks I shall have an opportunity to test 
it." This lady, upon pains becoming very hard, 
by advice of the nurse, sent for me at one o 'clock 
A. M. ; I arrived at two. She took the an- 
aesthetic, and after a few inhalations she passed 
into sleep, in which she followed my leadings 
perfectly ; passed through all the experience 
of a boat-race, drive to Wissahickon, cat-fish 
supper, etc., and so perfectly clear was she 
that when I asked her to ride she hesitated to 
accept, I saw at once, from a moral sense of 
propriety, I being a stranger. I told her, " Your 
mother, Mrs. Mason, goes with us," whereupon 
she consented ; when boating, she assured me 
that she never was in a boat before. " Isn't it 



128 The Olive Branch. 

delightful ?" When I asked them to supper, 
" What time is it, doctor?" " Five o'clock." 
11 O, I must go home ; husband will be home 
to supper ; he is tired ; he has a sore hand." 
" O, no," said I, " your mother has arranged to 
have him here to supper ; see ! there he is 
now." "Why yes, there he is; I'm so glad." 
At supper she took the cat-fish, but declined 
the chicken, and also ice-cream, which, her 
mother said, was her custom in ordinary. After 
coming home I gave her a peach, which she 
enjoyed greatly. I said, " These peaches are 
from that basket." " O, aren't they beauti- 
ful ?" Letting, now, the effect become as light 
as possible, and seeing a pain come, I said, 
" Mrs. M., please help me move this basket 
over?" "Certainly; O, it's heavy." " Yes, 
pull." " O, it's very heavy ! " " Yes, pull 
hard." Pain subsides. " Now it's over, isn't 
it? " " Yes, now, it's over, did'nt I help you 
nice?" " You didn't do much of the lifting, 
you left all the weight on me, I notice that." 
With next pain and next basket, " O, I can't ! 
O, it's too heavy! I must go home; my hus- 
band wouldn't approve of my staying here, 
lifting these heavy baskets." It was now noon ; 



The Happy Results in Practice. 129 

labor had been hard all the time, and head de- 
tained above the brim. My anaesthetic was 
becoming scarce ; had used nine ounces of the 
mixture ; had but two on hand. The narrow 
rim and small pelvis obliged me to place the 
forceps and deliver ; had rupture of perineum, 
which I was obliged to stitch ; all this with 
about two ounces of the mixture. In conse- 
quence she suffered some. Had I been better 
supplied she would never have known aught 
but her dreamings, which to-day are perfect in 
her mind, while even the memory of the forceps 
and operation are blurred and dim. 

One more case : Mrs. X. was married at a 
period in life when there was no reasonable 
ground to expect offspring, and yet in time, to 
her great surprise, she found herself on the 
way to motherhood. All the physical condi- 
tions were against her. Her family physician 
did not believe that she ever could be the 
mother of a living babe. But when the time 
came, she was promptly put under the in- 
fluence of the anaesthetic compound given in 
this book, and though the birth was a little 
tardy, accompanied by some suffering under 
these unusual conditions, yet all went on with 



130 The Olive Branch. 

safety to both mother and child. To the de- 
light and surprise of all, she was the mother of 
a living babe. It was at the time a conceded 
fact that, but for the relaxing effects of the 
anaesthetic mixture, either the mother or child 
must, in all likelihood, have been sacrificed. 
And so we might go on to an unlimited ex- 
tent, but forbear. 

There are certainly cases when anaesthetics 
are contra-indicated, and must not be given, 
but those cases are the exception, not the rule. 
The question, Must I give it? should give 
place to, Must I refuse it? . . . 

The experience which a continuous practice 
for a score of years in the use of anesthesia in 
labor leads me to add that the argument and 
conclusions have been fully confirmed ; as well 
also has the general experience of the profes- 
sion demonstrated the same. This is the 
proper effect of anesthesia in labor, and should 
always be looked for. 

This effect and this constant use, more 
perfect as experience developed its possibil- 
ities, I taught my student, Dr. P., who was 
graduated at Bellevue Hospital about 1871, 
and is now a successful practitioner in New 



The Happy Results in Practice. 131 

Jersey ; also Dr. H., his chum and fellow-grad- 
uate, a successful practitioner in Philadelphia, 
whose wife I have had the pleasure of taking 
care of during the birth of two children, under 
the influence of this mixture; also to my stu- 
dent, Dr. G., a graduate of Jefferson Medical 
College, Philadelphia, now a successful practi- 
tioner in that city. The prejudice of public and 
professional opinion may have more or less de- 
terred them from using anaesthetics as freely as 
I do. The pioneer is ever the martyr, and the 
tendency is very great to attribute every acci- 
dent to the anaesthetic. I am satisfied this is 
unfair ; but for these many years I have never 
refused a single patient this comfort, more or 
less perfect, except where absolute contra- 
indications existed on the part of the patient 
or surrounding circumstances, without having 
seen a single misadventure ; on the contrary, 
I have seen patients in the midst of labor; one 
at present comes to my mind, with expression 
in face and gesture of perfect peace and happi- 
ness, turn to her nurse, who was fearful of it, 
having never seen it given, moving toward her 
the " smoke-pipe, M as she termed the inhaler, 
" O, nurse, this is happiness ; O, this is com- 



132 The Olive Branch. 

for: .: would I do without this? And 

I'm not asleep, nursie ; I know all I'm saying." 
Tk :ond confinement under my 

care, and she, though a poor woman, had re- 
turned to Philadelphia to be under the same 
comfort she had with her first babe. This. 
greater or less degree, should be the pleasant 
curse of all labors except where the individ- 
ual case absolutely contra-indicates. To this 
ever\- woman is entitled, and for this she may, 
and of right ought to, hold her physician re-, 
sponsible ; she may with every propriety claim 
that if she be able to bear the perils of child- 

th alone, in its fury, she is equally able to 
bear the effects of this light stage of anaes- 
thesis. The time is past when her suffering may 
be ign ored by the learned physician, and every 
woman should perfectly understand that the old- 
fashioned assurances, * % Your pains are natural ! 
you will not die ! this is God's order fcr you ! n 
are simply and absurdly cruel, and should not 
be sub::::::; I to. If God allowed the pains, G: ft 
sent the anaesthesia. Under the influence of 
this mixture I have applied forceps, made 

rsion, performed craniotomy, and controlled 
threatened convulsions without ever having 



The Happy Results in Practice. 133 

seen a single untoward or dangerous symp- 
tom. 

The influence of this mixture upon the parts 
directly involved in labor, when parts are nor- 
mal and labor natural, is simply to accelerate 
parturition ; all the parts yield more readily, 
and, being non-resistant, the influence of each 
pain holds until its successor comes on. The 
danger of the head being forced through a re- 
sistant perineum by the frenzied exertion of 
the mother in that terrible moment of agony 
does not obtain, since the frenzy is not present, 
neither the agony of the moment ; on the con- 
trary, a steady, painless pressure upon the 
non-resistant tissues induces relaxation and 
distension by natural law, with a minimum 
risk of laceration. 

I never saw the arrest of labor pain ; I be- 
lieve such never occurs in the proper effect of 
anaesthesia, the law of which is never to allow 
a stertorous sleep ; the accidental occurrence 
of a snore being the prompt, urgent signal for 
withdrawing the anaesthetic. Arrest of labor 
means excess of anesthesia. 

It is further to be especially noted, this 
stage of anaesthesia offers no obstacle to the 



134 The Olive Branch. 

use of any medication useful in its absence. 
Is the labor slow, the os rigid, the perineum 
resistant ? use a stimulant, a warm bath, or any 
other medicament indicated. Let one or all be 
administered. Ask your patient to take a glass 
of lemonade, and she will swallow any draught 
with pleasure. I am satisfied every artifice 
possible will acquire additional force through 
the anaesthetic influence, and should worse 
come and instrumental interference be re- 
quired, with how much greater safety may 
such be used for the calm, quiet, non-resistant 
woman than for the frightened, pained, shriek- 
ing creature, who believes herself dying, and 
who is suffering more than death. 

The depressing or sickening effect of ether 
or chloroform upon patient or child after 
labor is, so far as I have been able to observe, 
not present, while the exhaustion, the weari- 
ness, the soreness, resulting usually from a hard 
labor is markedly absent. 

Summing up, I think I have shown : 

i. The claim of the parturient woman for 
anaesthesia is unequaled by any claim in the 
wide world. 

2. These claims will not have received a fair 



The Happy Results in Practice. 135 

response until the anaesthetic is as common in 
the lying-in chamber as upon the operating- 
table. 

3. A proper anaesthesia is more directly in- 
dicated and more safe in the ordinary obstet- 
ric patient than in the surgical patient, case 
for case. 

4. We have an anaesthetic mixture capable 
of producing perfect immunity from suffering, 
without intoxication, without vomiting, with- 
out reaction or dangerous sequences. 

5. The babe offers no contra-indication, since 
its safety is not jeopardized. 

6. Labor is not hindered, but rather hastened 
by the anaesthetic. 

7. Anaesthesia offers no contra-indication for 
the use of any medication which would be in- 
dicated in its absence. 

If all these, or a majority of these, be true 
then I believe I have shown a strong moral 
demand on the part of suffering woman upon 
the profession, not only to administer the 
anaesthetic, but to educate the people up 
to its sufferance, as in the case of vaccination 
against small-pox, or quarantine against epi- 
demics. 



AN OPEN LETTER, WITH SOME 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



10 



An Open Letter. 139 



CHAPTER X. 

AN OPEN LETTER, WITH SOME PRELIMINARY 
OBSERVATIONS. 

WE all know that there is a very marked 
difference between the use and the abuse 
of any thing. The best gifts of God may be per- 
verted, for nearly all vices are virtues pushed 
to extremes. The world may be used or it 
may be abused. The freest use of all things is 
given us, but we are cautioned against abus- 
ing any thing. " Thou shalt have dominion . . . 
over the earth." There is not a particle of 
substance or any sort of force in nature which 
mankind may not employ under the guidance 
of reason. 

Every new thing needs to be rigidly tested ; 
this is as it should be. Conservatism has its 
proper place in the affairs of men. We need 
the locomotive to propel the train along its 
iron path-way, but the brake is equally needed 
to check its speed, or, if need be, to bring it to 
a dead halt. 



140 The Olive Branch. 

Yes; every thing should be tested thorough- 
ly, and then, if " weighed in the balance and 
found wanting," discarded ; if not wanting, 
adopted. Many a theory in the science and 
practice of medicine, as in every thing else 
in this world, once believed in firmly has long 
since been exploded, and we wonder how 
we could have been so chained in ignorance, 
alas ! 

" To err is human ! " 

What vast quantities of good blood have 
been wasted by the old-fashioned lancet? How 
rarely now does the physician " bleed " his 
patient ? He has discovered his error and 
learned a better way. But if you had spoken 
a syllable against " blood-letting" only a few 
decades ago you would have been laughed 
at. 

Some remedies once very popular are now 
but little used in the treatment of disease. 
Take that article once so famous in medical 
practice, sub-chloride of mercury, or calomel, 
and which has its uses yet, as an illustration. 
The drug has not changed a particle in its 
chemical constitution, but how seldom, com- 
paratively, is it employed now ; and if it is used 



An Open Letter. 141 

it is in grain or half-grain, instead of " ten " or 
" twenty M grain doses as formerly. And then 
if it was given, no matter what the degree 
of thirst, the poor patient must not have any 
cold water to drink, for that would be peril- 
ous to the life. The good doctors believed 
all this, and they practiced their creed con- 
scientiously. 

We once knew of an old and very respect- 
able physician who was taken ill and was put 
under the care of a brother doctor, who ad- 
ministered the standard medicine, calomel, and 
of course he must refrain from drinking water. 
He grew very thirsty, called for water, but 
none was allowed. His thirst increased until 
it became raging; and so, when the nurse was 
asleep one night, the old doctor crawled out of 
his bed, went to the tank, and, as he said, "drank 
a whole pitcher of cold water/' He did not 
care, he said, if he did die; he wanted water; 
water he would have, did have in abundance, 
against the " doctor's orders M and his own 
medical theories. All expected that he would 
die from the effect of mixing calomel and water 
in the system, but he didn't ; instead he " got 
better from that hour," as he expressed it. In 



142 The Olive Branch. 

all of his subsequent practice he discarded the 
old notion and allowed his patients water even 
if they were taking calomel. O, the cruelty of 
the doctors ! 

Some time ago (1885) there appeared in the 
columns of one of our most widely circulated 
and influential religious weeklies an editorial 
note against the use of anaesthesia, excepting 
in very grave surgical cases, which we give be- 
low for the sake of the rejoinder, which will 
follow it in the form of an open letter : 

" Official returns in England show that 
eighteen persons in England and Scotland 
were killed last year by taking anaesthetics. 
Nine were from the use of chloroform, six 
from ether and chloroform. In every fatal case 
the patient had been quite healthy, and the 
operations had been of a comparatively slight 
character. We frequently read of similar cases 
in this country. Nor is nitrous oxide free 
from danger in every case. Taking of anaes- 
thetics, except for grave operations, is to be 
condemned. Not only is it dangerous to take 
them for ordinary tooth-pulling, but it makes 
cowards of the people. Reserve chloroform, 
etc., for operations where the suffering is itself 



An Open Letter. 143 

a danger. Bear ordinary ills with manly for- 
titude/' 

11 Philadelphia, Pa., October 25, 1885. 

Rev. , D.D. : " My dear doctor, I 

have had the pleasure and profit of hearing 
you preach, and greatly admire you for your 
powerful and energetic habit of thought. I 
cannot help thinking what your influence upon 
those who know you as I do must be for good 
if right, for bad if wrong, while standing upon 
the platform of a paper so widely circulated as 
the one you edit, and teaching by your pen so 
many people. 

" In your issue of the 22d instant you hold 
up what I sincerely believe to be an error. I 
know you to be a true man, and fearless in the 
advocacy of truth as God gives you to see it, 
but in knowledge of facts, physical as well as 
spiritual, we ' see through a glass darkly' un- 
til we get to the other side of the physical and 
into the land of the spiritual. 

" Now, I, too, claim to be a lover of truth and 
its fearless advocate, and I know a truth — may 
I say it — in its entirety, which, if I rightly judge, 
you i know only in part/ Our situations are 
different ; I have devoted nearly a score of 



144 The Olive Branch. 

years to the study of this truth as a specialty. 
I have sacrificed much for it, and at one time 
when God gave me the assurance that one of his 
children must live or die as I was faithful or 
false to my knowledge, the balance in my 
judgment depending upon the use of this truth, 
I was called upon, and did, as I can easily 
satisfy you concerning, place upon the altar my 
reputation and my means, liable to lose both, 
for the sake of the knowledge I possessed ; 
and now woe is me if I teach it not. 

" Now, if what you teach is the truth as to 
this matter, then is my life-work in vain. But 
I know that your teaching is not in absolute 
truth. Your position as an editor of a widely 
circulated journal is great, your influence must 
hence be wider in its range than mine, inas- 
much as you speak to hundreds, if not thou- 
sands, against my one every week. So in 
proportion will an error supported by you 
run rampant long and far before the truth 
taught by my pen shall be able to overtake it. 

" Are you interested ? Will you read care- 
fully and prayerfully the pamphlet I send 
you ? Then read what further I have to say. 

" In your paper you say editorially : * Taking 



An Open Letter. 145 

of anaesthetics, except for grave operations, 
is to be condemned. ... It makes cowards 
of the people.* I beg to take issue with both 
assertions. I will say, however, that if your 
advice is to ' bear ordinary ills with manly for- 
titude,' confining your advice to men, I have 
no quarrel with you. I leave man to fight his 
own battles. I will only give it as my opinion, 
that perhaps if all these eighteen persons 
alluded to could have had another trial their 
deaths might have been prevented. 

14 Eighteen deaths in a population of thirty 
millions of people might occur from almost 
any cause. No doubt more than that number 
of people in England and Scotland during the 
same period were thrown from horses or killed 
by railway accidents. But you surely would 
not argue against horses and railroads from 
that stand-point. 

" When vengeance plunges the knife, who 
condemns the knife? No one. But when 
carelessness in the use of anaesthetics or want 
of proper means (easily within reach) causes 
death, chloroform must be beheaded* 

" But I battle not for man nor me, but for 
her who bore your Lord and you. Let your 



146 The Olive Branch. 

teachings on this line be accepted, and woman 
will falter in receiving the comfort which God 
means her to have, as I have seen her do, lest 
she be deemed a coward, or lest, perhaps, there 
be danger to her or the little one dearer than 
life. 

" If you have read and believe my teachings 
you will modify your remarks ; and O, if you 
will do this from the platform of your paper 
how many hearts will rejoice ! 

" Now, brother, be of deep solemn thought, 
and I will show you from God's word and from 
my own definite experience of this day that my 
teachings are true, and that this is God's pur- 
pose toward all mothers. The curse reads, ' I 
will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy con- 
ception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chil- 
dren ; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, 
and he shall rule over thee (Gen. iii, 16). 

" The law also reads, ' Eye for eye, tooth for 
tooth/ etc. (Exod. xxi, 24). 

" But both are modified in this our day. 
Under the loving rule of Jesus wrath has given 
place to love. ' Whosoever shall smite thee on 
thy right cheek, turn to him the other also ' 
(Matt, v, 39). 



An Open Letter. 147 

" In the book of Jeremiah, xxxi, 7-1 1, we are 
plainly given to understand that in time the 
lame, the blind, the woman and child, the 
woman in travail, will be comforted, the curse 
lightened. How is it ? Our Lord says, in evi- 
dence of his coming, ' The blind see, the lame 
walk, the deaf hear,' etc.; there is comfort for 
all. • Is there none for the woman in travail. 

" But how merciful is the Lord to ' them with 
child/ And do we not know how much we 
have for their comfort? But how is it with 
the woman in travail? I say to you, that but 
for anaesthesia there is no comfort for her : 
words avail nothing, human sympathy is no 
antidote now. There are no words to describe 
the condition at this day more perfectly than 
those of the prophet of the long ago : ' For I 
have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, 
and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth 
her first child, the voice of the daughter of 
Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth 
her hands, saying, Woe is me now ! for my soul 
is wearied because of murderers.' What a 
pen portrait is that ! 

" Only a few days ago one of the managers of 
the Methodist Episcopal Orphanage of Phila- 



148 The Olive Branch. 

delphia related to me that she labored in 
almost death-agony thirty-three hours, and 
when all was over the nails were off her fingers. 
She said her doctor told her that she would 
soon forget it, but fifteen years afterward she 
met him- and told him that she had not forgot- 
ten it. Just think what a proper administra- 
tion of anaesthesia would have done for that 
woman, what a safe relief she might have had. 

" This very morning I came to my home at 
ten A. M. — out all night — a woman in labor 
twenty-eight hours, twelve hours in light an- 
aesthetic sleep under which, though talking 
and laughing the while, her babe is born all 
unknown to her. No torn finger nails here. 
Do you ask was she drunken? I say, No. But 
this is that which cometh to pass that was 
spoken by the prophet, a fulfillment of the 
promise of comfort to the woman in travail. 
Her boy is born without pain, without 
danger, and without a single untoward symp- 
tom, leaving the mother without the weariness 
and soreness which would have existed had 
she suffered or labored as in ordinary. 

" And now wherein should this make ' cow- 
ards of the people ? ' The Lord gave Adam 



An Open Letter. 149 

blessed sleep. He caused a ' deep sleep to fall 
on him ' when Eve was born. By what means? 
Only he knows, but certain it is he slept. But 
did this make of us a race of cowards? ' He 
giveth his beloved sleep! ' Does it make of us 
cowards? The soldier in going into battle re- 
members that should it be his fate to receive 
some ghastly wound the anaesthetic shall stand 
upon his right hand while the surgeon takes 
the left. Does this assurance add to his fears? 
Is he not as brave when he returns to the 
ranks? Our Saviour, in love, says, ' Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
I w r ill give you rest/ Are we thus taught to 
be less brave, or less disposed to bear our ills 
with ' manly fortitude ? ' Our Lord prayed, 
1 Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me/ Was Jesus a coward? Are we taught 
cowardice by his example ? Does woman play 
the coward when she accepts the means which 
God has given her to sweeten the cup — anaes- 
thesia in labor? I do not think so. 

" And now, dear brother, you ask why all this 
to you ? Why not through the profession and 
medical journals reach and disseminate the 
truth ? Doctors of medicine, like some doctors 



150 The Olive Branch. 

of divinity, are sometimes very conservative. 
Our Lord did not reach the people through 
the priests. Ah, no ! * The common people 
heard him gladly.* The priests gave their in- 
fluence to put him to death. The profession 
of to-day knows these truths, or may know 
them, as well as they of the Jewish syna- 
gogues knew, or might have known, the truths 
of the teachings of Christ. 

" You know the history of vaccination — how 
its discoverer was persecuted and doomed to 
poverty. Alas ! a sad story. For eighteen 
years I have been teaching and demonstrating 
the truth in this city. For six years a good 
minister has published several editions of the 
pamphlet which was first issued, and has been 
engaged in scattering them gratuitously quite 
extensively, and yet within a year, at Ocean 
Grove, I took care of two wealthy ladies from 
the city of Philadelphia, each with her fourth 
child, neither of whom had ever known of this 
comfort. A lady came all the way from In- 
diana for the express purpose of receiving this 
comfort in her confinement. Any physician in 
her home neighborhood could have adminis- 
tered it. 



An Open Letter. 151 

" How long must I teach at this rate ? To- 
day this truth can almost be said to be like the 
Author of truth, having no place where to lay 
its head. The clergyman who published that 
pamphlet did not dare to let his name be 
known, lest his people should ' hound ' him. 
I dare not issue the papers from my office in 
Philadelphia lest I be charged with advertising 
myself. But I say unto you, it shall have a 
habitation and a name more than local. 

" I have at Ocean Grove a Hygienic Institute 
from whence I hope to teach this truth, meet 
inquiries, and issue evidences. Let but your 
paper suggest inquiries and Twill see to it that 
these inquiries beget replies, that these replies 
beget faith, and faith beget knowledge and ex- 
perience, which, when related, shall again be- 
get inquiries and replies. Our foundation- 
stones are Faith, Knowledge, Experience. 

u I have delivered to you my burden ; will 
you give me your aid in the great purpose? 
Will you suggest to me how I may bring, or, 
rather, any way that this truth may be brought, 
to the knowledge of the public, and I am thy 
servant ? 

" And now, if you can still spare the time, I 



152 The Olive Branch. 

will present two facts in support of the use of 
anaesthesia. When my eldest girl was two 
days in life she was taken with most awful 
convulsions — black. Dr. S was in attend- 
ance. He said she must die. I proposed chlo- 
roform. He replied, ' Then you will kill her/ 
I said, ' Doctor, I will give it, and the child 
shall have the benefit of the doubt/ He left 
me to attend to other professional duties 
For fifty-two hours that babe slept under an- 
aesthesia, only let up enough to swallow from 
a spoon what nourishment could be drawn 
from its mother's breast. Upon every attempt 
to let up more spasms would onset. But the 
babe was saved. Six months thereafter it was 
taken again in the same way. A neighboring 
physician was called in in my absence. For 
three hours he labored ; would not allow 
anaesthesia. I returned, and in a few minutes 
the child was asleep under the influence of 
chloroform. About three weeks afterward I 
met a medical friend who took me warmly by 
the hand and expressed his sorrow at my loss. 
1 Why, doctor, I have had no loss/ ' Did 
you not lose a little babe?' 'No/ 'Why, 
you had a very sick child, had you not ? ' 



An Open Letter. 153 

* Yes, doctor, but she is all right again.' 
Surprise. 

" Dr. H must have told him and made 

his prognosis, but anaesthesia saved the child. 

" The fact is, dear doctor, we do not need to 

argue against the use of anaesthesia. Only let 

it be properly administered, and, if need be, 

let there be suitable legislation thrown around 

it ; let us make sure that the switches are not 

misplaced. If you have taken the trouble to 

read this, I am thankful. If you have modified 

your views, I am thankful. If you will in any 

way let your paper teach this purpose of God 

toward woman, I shall bless the Lord in my 

heart of hearts, and with vigor anew work and 

win for the Master. 

u I am truly yours, 

"D. Miller Barr, M.D." 
11 



MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS AND 
INCIDENTS. 



14 Quis bonus, aut face dignus 

Arcana, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos 

Ulla aliena sibi credat mala." 

" Who can all sense of others' ills escape 
Is but a brute at best in human shape." 

" I am a man, and deem nothing that relates to mankind 
foreign to my feelings." — Terence, Tr. 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 157 



CHAPTER XI. 

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

I. The Physician. 

WE have purposely refrained in this book 
from almost every thing that comes 
within the sphere of the physician. In all 
cases it is at least supposable that he will be 
called to the bedside of the sick. And what a 
boon to humanity a wise, careful, attentive, 
sympathetic medical practitioner is ! Not all 
the' men who wear the title of doctor are of 
this stamp, but how many there are every- 
where who are noble, skillful, religious, and, 
at the least, moral in the superlative degree. 
Such a physician is a public benefactor. 

But then the medical practitioner may be a 
coarse man and yet at the same time be skill- 
ful in his profession. He may be kingly in his 
calling and yet be quite other than refined and 
sympathetic as a man. There is an old say- 
ing, " Bad man, but good priest. " He may be 
bad man, but good doctor ; then " more's the 



158 The Olive Branch. 

pity." But he who comes into the sacred tab- 
ernacle of home, into this inner chamber of 
family life to minister to the sick, should be 
not less the scientific physician, but he should 
combine with these professional attainments all 
the sweet and tender graces of cultivated man- 
hood. For a delicate and sensitive woman, es- 
pecially, to be carried through the period of 
maternity by one, however learned and skill- 
ful, whose presence would not be agreeable 
ordinarily must be far from a desirable ex- 
perience. Our physicians, as a rule, are men 
of culture, skilled in their profession, and of 
sympathetic natures, even though they spend 
their days under hardening influences. How 
much we all need them, or may need ! How 
certainly they earn all the money they get ! 
How surely they are entitled to the honor and 
respect of the people they serve ! 

We remember distinctly an old physician 
long since at rest. He had reached his " three- 
score and ten years ; " his hair and long flow- 
ing beard were as white almost as the snows 
of winter. He was large in stature, six feet 
tall, and heavy in proportion ; he was patri- 
archal in appearance. It was said that his very 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 159 

presence in the sick-room was health-giving. 
It did not matter who was in need of his serv- 
ices ; it did not matter how cold the weather, 
or how hot ; whether mid-day or midnight, 
near-by or remote, unless absolutely hindered 
by his own sickness or that of his family, or by 
professional duties in some other direction, the 
call must be responded to. We have known 
him often to rise out of a warm bed away in 
the quiet hours of the night, if not in the " wee 
small hours " of the morning, in the dead of 
winter, dress himself, take his lantern, and go 
to the barn, saddle or harness his horse, and 
ride out over the hills in the dark, through 
deep mud or drifted snows, to carry relief, and, 
if possible, to bring back health to some poor 
mortal, and often when he could not hope to 
receive any remuneration for his services. When 
remonstrated with for doing such hard work at 
his time of life, he would say in reply, good- 
naturedly, " O, this is my business — my life- 
work. To this I am devoted. I must do my duty 
by the sick." It was not for money alone he did 
it, for at his death his estate, which, from his 
extensive practice running through many years, 
ought to have been large, was quite moderate. 



160 The Olive Branch. 

Physicians are human ; they may make 
mistakes, do make them often ; for disease is 
frequently hidden, subtle, obscure ; medicines 
do not act always with unvarying certainty ; 
patients are not invariably careful to " follow 
the doctor's prescriptions,' ' and then he is lia- 
ble to be condemned for not doing impossible 
things, for not " working miracles ; " next 
comes a " change of doctors. n People should 
not do as the simple-minded woman did, who, 
after the doctor had given directions at what 
intervals to give the medicines, reasoned that 
if a little would do some good more certainly 
would do more good, and so gave all in one 
dose. The next morning the undertaker was 
needed, and not the doctor. There are in- 
stances, no doubt, when a change may be 
helpful ; but we should be thoughtful, candid, 
appreciative. Select a good physician in the 
start, and retain him, unless compelled by cir- 
cumstances to make a change. From long 
practice in a family he comes to know the con- 
stitution and idiosyncrasies, gets way-wise in 
the household, and if he be a true man, keep- 
ing step with the times as he should, he can 
serve you far better than a stranger. All 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. i6t 

honor, then, to the honest skillful physician of 
whatever school. 

2. The Nurse. 
Nursing the sick, especially in the cities, has 
advanced in recent times to the dignity of a 
distinct profession. This is as it should be ; 
it is a most useful and honorable calling. As 
in medicine the so-called quack or charlatan is 
banished by statute in most of the enlightened 
countries, and forbidden to put in peril human 
life with his nostrums, and only they who 
have traversed the curriculum of the estab- 
lished schools of medicine can engage in this 
learned profession, so are we coming into a 
new era with respect to the profession of nurs- 
ing. They are not required, like doctors and 
druggists, to have college diplomas, but in 
all cases where nurses, male or female, have 
gone through the " training-school," their 
qualifications for their^ work are far greater. 
The nurse supplements the physician ; he 
comes and goes ; he carries in his pocket a 
long list of patients upon whom he must call 
within a few hours, and therefore no one must 
monopolize much of his precious time. But 



1 62 The Olive Branch. 

the presence in the sick-chamber of a com- 
petent nurse, who is faithful and conscien- 
tious, is re-assuring ; the physician knows his 
patient will be cared for in his absence, the 
medicines will be regularly administered, the 
symptoms carefully watched and recorded, 
and the outlook be far better for all. The vo- 
cation of the nurse is by no means an ordi- 
nary one. He or she, more frequently the lat- 
ter, stands next to the doctor in the treatment 
and care of the sick. The work is by no means 
light and easy, the rest is broken, the air of 
the apartments not always the most agreeable 
to the lungs. Besides, patients are not only 
liable to be feeble, requiring to be lifted and 
moved about, but they are often nervous, fickle, 
and whimsical ; but this, while it may test the 
patience of the nurse, must be borne with — it 
comes with disease. Secure a competent 
trained nurse if you can ; if not, from any rea- 
son, then do the next best thing, rely on some 
friend who will spare no pains to do you good. 

3. Humor the Child. 
We do not mean spoil it by indulging its 
notions unnecessarily, but remember that it is a 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 163 

child, and that a child has a playful nature. 
All young animals must have play-spells. The 
child is a young animal, and is not an exception 
to the rule. Some well-meaning people — a 
few — are so very precise and particular in their 
household regulations that " playthings " can- 
not be allowed — they are unsightly and must 
not be seen on the floors. Admitting that it 
may be overdone and so give a confused look 
to the room, yet it is better to err on that side 
if anywhere. We know of a family so scrupu- 
lously neat that the child-nature was fairly 
starved out ; the children would stand on 
their tip-toes and, for want of any thing better, 
amuse themselves by playing with the door- 
knobs ! That was neatness with a vengeance. 
We should expect such people to bind the 
legs of their calves and lambs with strong 
cords to the fence-posts to keep them quiet 
and orderly, and to cut off the kitten's tail 
to prevent it from running around after it. 

4. Live and Learn. 
Some physicians, like some ministers, live 
in or rather on the past ; they are not pro- 
gressive ; they read it all years ago, and think 



164 The Olive Branch. 

they know it all. Young physicians some- 
times make the mistake of depending too 
closely on what they learned as students. " A 
little learning is a dangerous thing.'* Such a 
man can't be taught any thing. The old and 
skillful doctor is much more likely to look into 
things, and when he sees a good thing seize 
upon it and utilize it in the interest of his pro- 
fessional work. There is a sense in which a 
man knows far less at fifty than at twenty-five. 
We have a case to cite which may serve as 
an illustration. A lady was approaching her 
second confinement, and was advised to employ 

Dr. , who had the reputation of being the 

most skillful practitioner in this particular line 
in the city. In a thousand or more cases he 
had not lost a mother or child, which was re- 
markable. He was withal a most splendid 
specimen of man, a thorough Christian gentle- 
man, and in general practice a leader, having 
had a quarter of a century's experience. She 
was determined to have anaesthesia after Dr. 
Barr's method, and cautiously made known 
this fact to her doctor. But he had not any 
special knowledge of this particular method, 
but stated that he was in the habit of adminis- 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 165 

tering chloroform in " bad cases. M The lady 

was, however, persistent, and Dr. , though 

he at first held aloof a trifle, at last consented 
to please her, and gave assurance that her de- 
sires in the case should be granted. She had 
herself ordered the inhaler that there might not 
be any failure. It was indeed not to be wondered 
at that so eminent a practitioner should hesitate 
in complying with what seemed no doubt to be 
the mere whim of a woman, but he conceded 
the point ; he could afford to do so, for he had 
nothing to lose, his reputation being so well 
established. When the time came the inhaler 
and the anaesthetic mixture were brought into 
speedy use. The whole process was over in a 
very brief space of time, and though a great 
eleven-pound boy was sent, it involved no suf- 
fering of the mother, and it lingers in her rec- 
ollection like a dream. When told that all 
was over she could scarcely believe it ; her 
first utterance was, " Praise the Lord ! " for her 
heart's desire was fulfilled in her boy. The doc- 
tor remarked, " That went off about as nearly 
perfect as any thing I have ever seen." The 
mother, instead of a feeling of exhaustion, said 
she felt a sense of refreshment. The inhaler 



166 The Olive Branch. 

went out of the house with the doctor, who 
said to us not long ago that he had used it in 
every case but one since that day. Medicine, 
like theology, is a progressive science, and all 
men can learn. Dr. Franklin said that he 
learned some valuable lessons from the unlet- 
tered blacksmith who shod his horse. 

5. Does Nature ever Err ? 
Some time ago we met a lady on the street 
whose daughter was the mother of a babe 
then probably five or six months old. We in- 
quired about her daughter and her child, and 
were told among other things that the babe was 
not brought up on a bottle, but a " tin cup." 
" Does she not nurse it ? " we asked. " No/' was 
the reply, " we feed it cold milk out of a cup." 
Nothing more was said. Now, why? That 
the mother, a healthy, fresh, young woman, 
whose supply of nature's food could only be 
abundant and of best quality, might have a 
freedom which a nursing-child would interfere 
with. What other excuse could there be? 
Now it is true such a child may live to grow 
up, and in after life have of course no recollec- 
tion of its infancy ; but why deny the little 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 167 

creature this one sweet solace, its own mother's 
breast? What will so quickly soothe a child's 
'heart into quietude and rest? What is there 
more tender than this relation? Can human 
beings improve on God's plan? Some people 
seem to think they have the ability to do so. 
The mother who repels from her bosom her 
child, unless she is compelled to do so by un- 
favorable conditions or circumstances, gives 
proof that her views of life and duty have been 
perverted. Nature does not make mistakes. 

6. A Babes Griefs and Ills, 
It occurred to us, while we were preparing 
the manuscript of this book, that it would be 
incomplete if it omitted to offer something to 
alleviate the sufferings of the child as well as 
those of the mother. People often fail to en- 
ter fully into the sympathies of their children. 
They become indifferent to a child's grief be- 
cause it is only a child, as if its ills were of no 
particular consequence. To grown-up people 
it may seem so, but to the little one it is far 
otherwise. We should avoid the extremes of 
too great indulgence on the one hand and too 
great strictness or indifference on the other. 



1 68 The Olive Branch. 

On general principles we should try to make 
the child's life as happy as possible, for if it 
lives it will meet in time its full share of the 
world's tribulations. 

A child is often spoken of as " cross " when 
it is sick ; it can speak to us " with no language 
but a cry." It is powerless to locate its pains 
and sufferings, and we are left to guess and 
often to blunder. The doctor is frequently 
sent for when in his weariness he would greatly 
prefer to remain at home, and when a little 
study of the situation on the part of the parent 
would not only relieve the child, but save ex- 
pense. 

In our medical studies we were warned by 
our instructors against " quacks " and " nos- 
trums," and it was well, for much that is called 
medicine, put up in bottles and packages, 
sometimes elegantly, is not only useless, but 
positively and seriously harmful. And yet 
this cannot be affirmed of all. 

We shall always be thankful that the cele- 
brated Hand's Remedies for the little ones fell 
into our hands. One day a bottle of the Colic 
Cure and a small pamphlet setting forth the 
merits of the Hand's Remedies came to our 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 169 

door. We read it, and saw that it contained a 
great deal of good instruction with reference 
to the care and treatment of children. We had 
a little fellow up-stairs who had joined the 
great colic brigade in good earnest, and so we 
at once ordered the Colic Cure from our drug- 
gist. " Seeing is believing." A dose or two 
and our boy was restful and quiet. The medi- 
cine did just what was promised in the adver- 
tisement. 

We were told that the remedy would not 
harm the child, that at the first it would not 
like it, and then that it would, all of which we 
now affirm we found to be true. We have 
used it more or less for months, not for colic 
alone, but to soothe the fretted nerves. The 
mother has said many times, as she has looked 
into the face of her restful babe, " Blessings on 
good Dr. Hand/' whom neither of us has ever 
seen to this day. 

We have not had occasion to resort to all 

of the different Hand's Remedies, but have found 

the Colic Cure, Chafing Pozvder, Cough and 

Croup Medicine, and Pleasant Physic invaluable 

in our household. The Cough and Croup Med- 

icine is superior for either child or adult. 
12 



170 The Olive Branch. 

These remedies are no.t only harmless, but 
they are not unpalatable. Ah, how well do 
we remember the time, and not very long ago 
either, when the dear children were held on their 
backs, their mouths pried open with spoon- 
handles, while nauseous drugs of one kind and 
another were forced down their little throats, 
amid cries and convulsive struggles ! This is 
not a " ghost story," but a fact, and thousands 
remember it. The man who first caught the 
idea of making medicines pleasant to the taste, 
while preserving their potency, deserves a 
crown. 

The pamphlet which accompanies each bot- 
tle of the different remedies is so full of good 
sense and science that it is worth to the aver- 
age mother more than the price of the medi- 
cine. It has been our custom to preserve these 
booklets and to send them around among our 
neighbors with the injunction not to throw 
them into the waste-basket, but to read them 
and pass them on to the next one ; and we 
have done this without the knowledge or 
consent of either Dr. Hand or the Hand Med- 
icine Company — we did it for the weal of the 
dear babies. 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 171 

A lady said to us recently that, if she were 
at liberty to devote her life to missionary work, 
she should go from house to house with these 
medicines for little suffering children ; she 
would feel that, like her divine Master, she 
would be "going about doing good." 

7. The Children s Hour. 
We heard a lady say one day that it was in 
her mind to devise some way by which to earn 
the money to hire her general housework done, 
so that she might have more time for reading 
and other literary work. " But," she added, 
with considerable emphasis, " I will never hire 
some one to put my children to bed if I can 
help it." We thought that a very sensible re- 
mark. In the first place a mother's first duty 
is toward her child. She has wifely duties, 
social duties, church duties, and all that, but 
to her children she is bound by ties the most 
sacred imaginable. A servant or nurse can 
put the children to bed, it is true, and she may 
do it well, but some servants are not good, 
honest, patient ; and so the dear child may be 
neglected in some way — frightened by ghost 
stories — injured ; or it may be inducted into 



172 The Olive Branch. 

some habit that will mar its whole after life. 
Don't charge this to our imagination. What 
has been may be again. 

There is no more beautiful picture in this 
world than that of a mother tucking away in 
their beds her darlings, kissing them good- 
night, and breathing her evening blessings, 
then stealing softly away; and, unless hin- 
dered by sickness, no one else as a rule should 
take a mother's place here. 

A child should always be put to bed happy. 
No matter what has occurred to require disci- 
pline, before the little one is sent away to 
dreamland let there be forgiveness and forget- 
fulness and tender expressions of love, else the 
child will not be happy — its sleep will not be 
sweet. 

The Scotch have two words, the dawin and 
the gloaming — the morning and the evening 
twilight hours. Children generally disturb our 
dawin naps. They are anxious to be at their 
play. In the gloaming, again, they need a play- 
spell ; all young animals and birds must have a 
romp before going to rest. The child needs not 
less its evening play-spell. Let there be a spe- 
cial children's hour — let it be in the " gloaming." 



Miscellaneous Thoughts. 173 

44 Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupation 
Which is known as the children's hour." 

So wrote our poet Longfellow. 

There lingers in our recollection the mem, 
ory of an incident we once read, the account 
of which is in place here. It was written by 
the heart-broken mother, who related it as a 
warning to all other mothers in the matter of 
making threats. Her child had committed a 
misdemeanor of some sort, and as a punish- 
ment she denied the usual good-night kiss. 
The little girl's tender nature thus received a 
cruel shock, and she begged again and again, 
"Please, mamma, O please kiss me!" But, 
though the maternal heart would gladly have 
embraced the little one and bestowed the 
longed-for kiss, yet as she had distinctly said 
she would not, she felt that her word must be 
kept, and remained firm. And so the anguish- 
tossed little soul on its bed finally fell sobbing 
to sleep. But sleep did not bring rest to the 
grieved heart ; she became feverish and ill ; 
delirium followed, in which over and over she 
would call out, " O, mamma ! please, please 
kiss me ! " 



174 TlIE Olive Branch. 

The kisses now showered upon the little 
face received no response, for . she was uncon- 
scious, and remained so until she passed to 
where the shadows never fall upon the spirit. 
O, the sorrowful cry of that mistaken mother ! 
Beware what threats you make to children ; 
they are seldom carried out, and if they are 
the effect may be dangerous. 



THE HOME. 



" Leave then the gaudy mansions of the great ; 

The cottage offers a secure retreat, 

Where you may make a solid bliss your own 

To kings and favorites of kings unknown."— Horace, Tr. 

li Active in indolence, abroad we roam 

In search of happiness which dwells at home, 

With vain pursuits fatigued at length you'll find 

No place excludes it from an equal mind." — Unknown. 

11 Art thou a man — a patriot? Look around; 
Oh ! thou shalt find howe'er thy footsteps roam 
That land thy country and that spot thy home." 

— English Poet. 



The Home. 177 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE HOME. 

THERE is no word in any language around 
which cluster so many associations and 
memories as gather about that one little word 
" home." The impressions which the home-life 
stamps upon the soul are hard to efface. People 
grow old, acquire new languages, live in new 
lands, and forget even the friends of their 
earlier years, but they carry with them to their 
graves memories of their homes. And it does 
not matter whether these homes were amid 
wealth or poverty, coarseness, or refinement, 
homes good or evil, they are never quite for- 
gotten. The most potent factor in the forma- 
tion of character is the home-life, either di- 
rectly or in its reactions. Out of homes ruled 
by love and holy wisdom have come most of 
our great and good men and women, and when 
some men have grown up reckless and vicious, 
and in their madness and folly have leaped all 
decent bounds, the very last anchor they have 



178 The Olive Branch. 

dragged, the last cable they have been able to 
snap has been the home-memory, which lin- 
gers in the recollection " like unto the benedic- 
tion which follows after prayer." Mention the 
word "home," and how quickly one's thoughts 
are borne away to some other place — to some 
distant city or state, or nation beyond the sea, 
and there will come up to view other scenes 
than those that surround us now. There, in 
imagination, is the old homestead, the garden 
with its winding paths fringed with flowers 
planted by a mother's hand. There are the 
vine-clad hills up whose sloping sides you 
clambered when youthful ambitions stirred the 
heart ; and there, too, is the old orchard be- 
neath whose blossom-freighted boughs you re- 
clined during many a sultry summer hour. 
Yonder is the meadow amid whose verdure 
you reveled, giving rein to fancies which pos- 
sibly maturer years have not realized. Not 
less do you remember the form and manly 
step of father, the tender voice of mother, the 
ringing laugh of brother, sister, friend. Thus 
do we find ourselves roaming through mem- 
ory's picture-galleries and held spell-bound 
and tearful before some spot hallowed in our 



The Home. 179 

recollections, or some face the memory of 
which almost makes us wish we were young 
again. 

There is something very human about this 
word home. The only being in all the earth 
that seeks a home, that appreciates, or under- 
stands the import of the word is man. The 
lion has his lair in the dense jungle, the fox 
his hole in the ground, the bear seeks his re- 
treat in the rock-cavern, the eagle builds her 
nest amid the crags of the mountain ; but 
these are not homes. Home is something 
more than a retreat or shelter. It means much 
in the world's life. It is when we reach mind 
and heart that the home idea becomes prom- 
inent and the home provision is made. 

We can scarcely determine the exact bound- 
ary-line which separates between instinct and 
reason; they seem at least to almost come to- 
gether. The lowest reason verges down on 
animal instinct, while the highest instinct is 
very like reason. Instinct is short-lived. A 
brute mother will show signs of genuine 
mourning for her dead young a few days, and 
then the sorrow is forgotten forever ; but 
human sorrow lasts because human love lives 



i So The Olive Branch. 

on through the years, and many a mother 
after the lapse of twenty summers can still 
feel the dimpled hand of her darling baby on 
her cheek. Even twenty years of average life 
have not dimmed that tender recollection or 
blurred the picture of that baby face. But 
wherefore all this ? We answer, because hu- 
man beings have that which the animal has 
not — soul. 

There are two words closely allied to each 
other, namely, "home" and " family ;" they 
imply each other and have almost a common 
meaning. In the very beginning of history it was 
ordained of God that man should not be alone. 
Fellowship, close companionship, are necessi- 
ties of our highest and best nature. The 
oldest history we have on this subject says, 
when the family was instituted and society be- 
gan to be, that the man left his father and 
mother to cleave unto his wife, and that they 
became one flesh. But in these latter days the 
order seems to be reversed. She leaves her 
father and mother and cleaves to the man, and 
he often goes far astray, greatly to her sorrow. 

We naturally turn to the Bible as our best 
guide on this subject. 



The Home. 181 

It was back here in these remote times that 
the home was planned and the family first or- 
ganized. The family, not the individual, is 
the unit of society. The doctrine which 
makes the individual instead of the family the 
prime factor in the society of the world is a 
false and ruinous one. The abrogation of the 
family, from whatever cause, would be the direst 
calamity which could befall the race. Social 
communion would be social ruin. Every in- 
terest of human life hinges upon this question 
of marriage and family. 

The foundation of the family is love, as an 
active principle, intense, beautiful, eternal. 
The love passion is the foundation of the so- 
cial fabric, and the family is the home of love. 
It is the highest, holiest, divinest instinct in 
human nature ; yes, and the loftiest and grand- 
est principle in the universe. " All the w r orld 
admires a lover/' wrote Emerson ; the remark 
is true. There are very few people in whose 
hearts this divine flame has not burned at some 
time in life. Again, Emerson has said, " Love 
is the enchantment of human life, which, like 
a certain divine rage, pledges man to the do- 
mestic and civic relations, carries him with a 



1 82 The Olive Branch. 

new sympathy into nature, enhances the power 
of the senses, opens the imagination, adds to 
his character heroic and sacred attributes, 
establishes marriage, and gives permanency to 
society." 

" I hold it true, whate'er befall, 

I feel it when I sorrow most ; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
. Than never to have loved at all." 

4 

It is not too much to say that the great gov- 
ernment exists to foster and protect the love- 
life of the people, for the love-life is the real 
home-life. This love is the basis of the home. 
The army exists to protect the home, and so 
to defend the love of the home. The legisla- 
ture in all of its acts should conserve the home- 
life of the citizens of the State. Every public 
officer of city, state, or nation, from policeman 
to president, means home protection. All of 
the industries point to this end. The field is 
plowed for the sake of home ; all the arts and 
industries mean home. Banish home and the 
love which builds it and binds it, and the in- 
centives to industry are gone. Let us hang 
out here a danger-signal. Home is not un- 
frequently sacrificed to the money-god — laid 



The Home. 183 

on the altar of Mammon. A gentleman once 
said in our presence that his business was so 
pressing that he scarcely ever saw his own 
children, excepting on Sabbath morning. Such 
a man may get rich, but he does it at the cost 
of that which is better than money — home-life 
and family. 

What is home? It is not a house on some 
street or farm. Home cannot be bounded by 
four square walls or located by the surveyor's 
compass and chain. We can purchase lands 
and houses, but we cannot buy a home. Peo- 
ple often strain every nerve to build a costly 
box, and then fill it with expensive furniture, as 
if that made home. A marble palace may be a 
den, a very prison, a hell, while a mere cabin, 
unpainted and unpictured, may be a very 
heaven. The house may be the center of 
activities by day and a shelter by night, but it 
does not create the home. Rather the home 
creates the house. The home spirit crystallizes 
about it this outward material form. 

A home includes a number of elements: 
there is the house-band — the strong arm and 
the stronger will which binds this together, 
holds it up, supports it. At least, that is the 



184 The Olive Branch. 

divine order. We have shortened the old- 
fashioned word into our husband. 

Then there is the weaver, or wife, for she was 
so named in the long; a^o when these words 
were being coined. Then her deft hand 
carded the wool, and broke the flax, and liter- 
ally wove the cloth in the loom out of which 
the garments of the family were made. 
She is not so generally in these days a weaver 
in the literal sense, and yet she weaves. The 
true wife gathers up the tangled threads of 
every-day life in her home. She is, when true, 
a patient burden-bearer, a willing servant, a 
prudent manager, a wise counselor, a careful 
economist, ever gathering up the fragments 
that nothing may be lost, and as a true 
woman and wife brings honor and comfort 
to her husband, and weaves a most beautiful 
life-web. 

Man's place is the great outside world, 
woman's the equally great inside world. He 
is the natural head of the family. She is the 
natural heart. If the head is needed to create 
the material home, the heart is equally needed 
to create the spiritual home. These relations 
are reciprocal and mutual. 



The Home. 185 

We have said that pure love is the inspira- 
tion of the home-life. You may have marble 
and mahogany, paintings and pianos, velvet 
and vertu, silver and gold, tapestry and lace, 
and all these, but if you have not purity and 
love which fill the heart, it is not home in the 
high true sense of the word — it is only a shelter, 
a place to stay. 

11 There is nothing on earth worthy to be 
compared with a genuine love. There is no 
other possession that can give by itself unal- 
loyed happiness. A loveless life is worthless, 
though passed amid luxuries and crowned with 
the proudest laurels of successful ambition. A 
life well set about with love of wife, husband, 
child, succeeds in the highest sense, even 
though haunted by that restlessness which 
seems to deny to some men and women 
what the world calls success. To have been 
reared in a home without love in the days of 
childhood, without the love of brothers and 
sisters ; to have passed youth without love of 
that romantic sort which makes a heaven of 
earth ; and to live on in mature years neither 
feeling nor inspiring that strong enduring love 

which makes any toil a pleasure and any bur- 
13 



1 86 The Olive Branch. 

den light so that it benefits the well beloved, is 
to be poor indeed, so poor that even the pity- 
ing angels have no alms to bestow upon them. 

" And yet how many know nothing of love 
or who understand the word only in its coarsest 
and lowest sense, so that one blushes to have 
uttered it in such a presence. Still how many 
more purer than these sneer at it as a delusion 
and absurdity, not understanding that pure 
love is not a thing of the senses, but of the 
soul ; not a flame flickering and flashing over 
the passionate time of life, but a soft, steady 
glow lighting it from the cradle to the grave, 
and, one may hope, even burning on beyond it, 
since heaven itself is love." 

How many find in themselves a tendency to 
forget, to lose all recollection of the good old 
times. We burn up the old letters written when 
hearts were warm and true, before the cares of 
life had choked the good and growing wheat 
of pure affection. Men grow stern and stiff 
and often cold. Life ceases to be a garden of 
flowers freighting the air with sweet aroma ; 
it becomes a battle-field. Business presses, 
men succumb to its behests, and carry their 
ledgers and bank-books with them to the dinner- 



The Home. 187 

table. His brow becomes wrinkled ; the rose 
fades from her cheek — alas ! 

Some one has said, that the world is full of 
kindness which has never been spoken; perhaps 
so, but to us an unspoken kindness is a contra- 
diction. That is only kindness in theory. We 
believe in theories, but a theoretical sun would 
not warm the earth, melt the snows, and bring 
out the spring daisies and butter-cups. A 
theoretical furnace would not warm one's house 
in winter, nor the chemical formula of water 
quench thirst. Like every other good, to be 
beneficial this principle must be active. Love, 
alert, active, and outspoken, is what makes 
parents and children, brothers and sisters, hus- 
bands and wives happy. If it is kept a secret 
it might as well not exist, for no one is made 
any happier by it. Love is only love when 
voiced in the life of the lover. 

No step in life is fraught with so much im- 
portance as that which binds together a man 
and woman for life, and yet no one is taken in 
multitudes of cases so recklessly. There is no 
study of each other, and possibly no adaptability. 
Temperaments are not thought of; the laws 
which should regulate in the matter are trampled 



188 The Olive Branch. 

under foot. Money, however important, is 
not a true basis ; appearance may play a 
part, but it should not decide. Many a dear 
girl has married a man whom she knew to 
be any thing but good because of his pro- 
fessions of affection. But the flame has died 
out on the hearth-stone of home before many 
years have passed away, and beside it there sits 
one that has disappointed all her hopes, one 
she cannot follow as a wife should follow her 
husband, unless she has chosen the pathway 
which leads from despair to perdition, and few 
are the women who make such choice. Mar- 
riage is a solemn step — a choice for life, not 
for a day or a year. 

Woman may have as much brain as man, 
and often more ; if it is less in weight it is of 
finer texture. She may be his equal, to say 
the least, but the quality which especially dis- 
tinguishes womankind and is at once the source 
of greatest weakness or greatest strength is 
her heart-life. Man's life is more varied than 
woman's. Her life is often monotonous; she 
treads the domestic wheel in its ceaseless and 
unvarying revolutions ; the same duties run the 
year through with most women. But let her 



The Home. 189 

heart have the food it craves, the love of her 
chosen one, and she will sing her song and be 
always happy. Deny her this priceless boon, 
and though she may continue to tread the 
wheel there will be no song in her heart unless 
it be a dirge, and not much sunshine in her life. 

Home life and home comforts are made up of 
little things. Some one has said, " The road 
to home happiness lies over many small step- 
ping-stones. Slight circumstances are the stum- 
bling-blocks of families.' ' An old proverb 
says that u the prick of a pin is enough to 
make an empire insipid." The tenderer the 
feelings the more painful the wound. A cold, 
unkind word checks and withers the blossoms 
of the dearest love as the most delicate ten- 
drils of the vine are torn by the breeze. If 
the true history of feuds and quarrels, public 
and private, were written they would be si- 
lenced by an uproar of derision. 

It is said that when the great Thorwald- 
sen returned to his native land with those 
rare and wonderful works of art which have 
made his name immortal, chiseled with patient 
toil and glowing inspiration in Italy, the serv- 
ants who unpacked them scattered upon the 



190 The Olive Branch. 

ground the straw which was wrapped about 
them. The next summer flowers from the 
gardens of Rome were blooming in the streets 
of Copenhagen from seeds thus borne and 
planted by accident ; so may gentle words 
spoken casually in the home circle set flowers 
of love to blooming there. 

Nowhere are the " small sweet courtesies " 
of life more in place than in the home ; and 
yet both men and women, who in society are 
very affable, may be indifferent at home. To be 
happy at home should be the result of all am- 
bition — the end to which every enterprise and 
labor tend, and of which every desire prompts 
the prosecution. " It is, indeed, in the home 
that every man must be known by those who 
would make a just estimate either of his vir- 
tues or felicity, for smiles and embroideries 
are alike occasional, and the mind is often 
dressed for show in painted honor and ficti- 
tious benevolence. ,, Home, of all places, is 
where people should be polite, attentive, ten- 
der. A quaint old poet wrote : 

11 Keep your undressed familiar style 
For strangers, but respect your friend — 

Her most whose matrimonial smile 
Is and asks honor without end." 



The Home. 191 

That was a beautiful saying of Rev. F. W. 
Robertson : " Do not keep the alabaster-box 
of your love and tenderness sealed up until 
your friends are in their graves. Fill their 
lives with sweetness while you can ; speak ap- 
proving, cheering, and courteous words while 
their ears can hear them and while their hearts 
can be thrilled by them." Many a man goes 
through the world sad because he cannot undo 
the acts which sent his wife broken-hearted to 
the grave. So the things you mean to say of 
your friends when they are gone say to them 
before they go. The flowers you send to 
brighten and cheer them while they are living 
need not lessen your offerings on their burial- 
day. Home is every thing to us; it is the 
realm of childhood, and children do not re- 
main with us very long. They soon grow up 
and pass to homes of their own, or perchance 
die, and we bury them ; the childhood world is 
a vanishing. Home is a school where we are 
ever learning the lessons of life that are never 
to be forgotten. It is not without its trials 
and sorrows. 

The following, from the pen of another, fairly 
illustrates what may come to any of us : " The 



192 The Olive Branch. 

shadows of misfortune often fall on a house- 
hold — unforeseen, unavoidable. When health 
fails, and the resources of the family have 
grown less and less, when the luxuries of 
life are not to be thought of, and the com- 
forts of life mock at you from the gayly dressed 
windows of store and shop, when you must 
deny yourself even the necessities — deny your- 
self, did we say? ah ! me, that were easy. But 
when the loving, patient wife, or the tender, 
industrious husband is laid upon a couch of 
suffering, possibly, and the food needed for the 
proper nourishment of the body cannot be 
procured, and then, added to all this, the sweet 
innocent faces of little children look up into 
your own confidingly, asking, ' Mamma, papa, 
may I have an apple ? ' and with grieved heart 
the fond parent must devise some way to turn 
the child's thought in another direction and 
cause it to forget that there is such a thing in 
the world as an apple, knowing all the time that 
God has crowned the year with plenty, that 
there are bushels and bushels of apples, luscious 
and golden, left possibly to decay on the 
ground beneath the tree boughs of many a 
farmer's orchard. 



The Home. 193 

" When a trifle of money would supply warm 
flannels for the sweet babe who crows and 
laughs even in the midst of poverty ; when to 
her own bitter sorrow the mother's nourish- 
ment for her child grows thin and insufficient 
through lack of wholesome and hearty food, and 
the little one grows restless and feverish, and 
moans and begs because its hunger is not fully 
satisfied. 

" When one suddenly finds that Christmas day 
may be the saddest one in all the year, because 
the little gifts costing only a trifle, with which 
the stores abound, must be hurried by with only 
a greedy look and a heart cry — not noticed by 
the outside world — for the few pennies must be 
hoarded with which to purchase that which 
sustains life itself; when one cannot afford to 
employ a servant, and the labor of the day 
presses far into the night, and then when the 
flying moments give only time to accomplish 
what must be done, in desperation the faithful 
wife snatches some of these precious moments 
in which to try and earn a few paltry dollars to 
add to the ever-vanishing store of money earned 
by the dear husband who toils and toils, finding 
reward only in the love of wife and children. 



194 The Olive Branch. 

"How then can we be cheerful, alas! It 
will not be strange if in the silence of her room 
at night scalding tears force themselves to 
the mother's eyelids, but even that relief for 
the overwrought soul must be subdued, dark 
forebodings must not be indulged, for it will 
cause the dear babe to be more restless still, 
and, besides, it will not help matters any; and 
she must not appear before the dear ones with 
dejected countenance, nor allow hasty and im- 
patient words to the children to find utterance. 
No, no ; but the merry song must be forced to 
the lips; the face must be taught to smile, 
though the heart seem almost ready to break be- 
neath it. Thank Heaven, there is a refuge for 
the burdened heart ! Many a promise may be 
called to memory, though there may not be 
time to read them; among them such as these: 
1 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills 
be removed ; but my kindness shall not de- 
part from thee, neither shall the covenant of 
my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath 
mercy on thee/ ' Trust in the Lord, and do 
good ; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and 
verily thou shalt be fed.' Hope will not 
forsake us, but be our support in the day 



The Home. 195 

of deepest affliction. Life's most valuable 
lessons are learned when we are passing 
along sorrowful pathways, and the future 
may clearly show us that the darkest hours of 
life were but the signs of brighter ones and in 
God's ordering the needful preparation for 
some special mission of God." 

While the word " home " means the inner spir- 
itual life of the occupants, yet it has its phys- 
ical aspects. The material house and the im- 
material home are somewhat related to each 
other, as the body and the soul, the one in- 
closes the other. 

Viewing it, then, from thematerial side, if you 
wish your home to be really a happy one let in 
the sunshine, the golden and beautiful light of 
the skies literally. Don't live in the dark and 
gloom if you can help it. Let in the light 
through door and window, that it may dispel 
the damp and malaria and blues! And let 
the light of the skies, the sweet soft sun- 
light, be a symbol of that other light of 
cheerfulness which is the sunlight of the 
home. Well has it been said, " There was 
never a stream of calamity so dark and deep 
that the sunlight of a happy face falling across 



196 The Olive Branch. 

its turbid tides would not wake an answering 
gleam." The house cannot always be built on 
elevated ground, but it can be built on the 
hill-top of cheerfulness and serenity so high 
that no shadows rest on it, and when the morn- 
ing comes so early and the evening tarries so 
late that the day is made up of golden hours. 
Some people make the fearful and fatal mis- 
take of building in the deep valleys of distrust 
and worry and nervous anxiety, where the 
nights are longest and the days shortest and 
the golden hours never come. Alas ! how can 
we help it? for life must needs have its trials 
and shadows. But as the watcher waits wear- 
ily for the first faint streaks of the dawn, so let 
us wait and hope and trust and pray for the 
better day. 



THE END. 



AN OPEN LETTER TO MOTHERS. 



Dear Madam : 

We will take pleasure in sending you, upon application, by mail, 
free, a sample bottle of Dr. Hand's Colic Cure or Teething 
Lotion, and also a copy of Dr. Hand's Pamphlet with Valuable 
Advice to Mothers. 

There will be many occasions during the years when your children 
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Dr. Hand is a reputable physician of good standing, with twenty- 
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His remedies are not quack nostrums, but the perfected prescrip- 
tions of an educated physician, who has tested ihtm in thousands of 
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The Colic Cure has proven such a blessing to mothers who are 
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I had the power to advise every mother in the land to use them for their children. 
They have never once failed to give relief. In behalf of the children I thank Dr. 
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"MRS. E. OWENS, 
"Matron, Ho7ne for Friendless Children, Scranton, Pa" 

Read the testimonials from mothers in the book w 7 e will send you 
on application, and if you doubt their genuineness write to any ox 
the parlies signing them and become convinced. 
Faithfully yours, 

HAND MEDICINE CO. 

Hand's Remedies supplied by your druggist at 25 cents a bottle. 
Should he not be willing or able to supply them, write to us and we 
will send to you through the mails on receipt of 30 cents. 



iUeCCSTlONi 




w/ ® 



/LittIeIneS 

'■//'" HAPPY 

' AS 

WE ARE 

A little book, illustrated, full of useful hints in the care of chil- 
dren, how to treat them in sickness, and how to keep them in health, 
or a trial bottle of Dr. Hand's Colic Cure, will be sent Free if you 
write 

THE HAND MEDICINE CO., 

305 CHERRY STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



I)R 



NAMES OF DR. HAND'S PREPARATIONS: 

HAND'S DIARRH(EA MIXTURE. 

" COL.IC CURE. 

" PLEASANT PHYSIC. 

" CHAFING POWDER. 

" COUGH AND CROUP MEDICINEo 

" TEETHING L.OTION. 

" GENERAL. TONIC. 

" WORM ELIXIR. 



